some author activity: Townsend, Olsen, Hofmann + Blouin,

Jamie Townsend is being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Geoffrey Olsen is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Ava Hofmann has some new work online via the Action Books blog; and Michael Blouin has a book heading to the moon!

new from above/ground press: OFF THE RESTING SEA, by Al Kratz

OFF THE RESTING SEA
Al Kratz
$5

Sergio wakes on the beach where yesterday’s view offered so much promise. What time is it? He barely remembers falling asleep on the sand, the feeling of something slipping away. The sun hasn’t warmed the beach yet, which, as far as Sergio can see, he has to himself. The beach. Oh shit, they really did it. Jane had always asked him to keep driving south on the Jersey Turnpike and not stop until Cocoa Beach. Jane, Sweet Jane. The original Queen of Disaster. Where was she now?
      Maybe she went for seashells. He picks one of the ways she could have gone, trusting his luck while ignoring the equal chance he’s walking away from her. Trusting the ocean. Such an incredible thing. At six foot five, a rare moment of feeling small. Early morning waves limping, but he knows they’re lying. He knows their true power.  
      They really did it. The sand and the ocean? Jane had given them to him. He thought she was joking. “Skip our exit, baby. Take me to Florida.” She said it every day. He’d spend his daydreaming about escaping the concrete life that belonged to someone else, Sergio always the borrower. This time, Jane following up with: “I’m serious. Let's do it.”

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2021
as the sixth title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Al Kratz lives in Indianola, Iowa with his wife, Kristy. They have ridden out the 2020 storm with writing, painting, and watching every television show possible. His work has been in Smokelong, Hobart, Pithead Chapel, Bull, and others. In 2020, he was shortlisted in the Bath Short Story Award. In 2019, Off the Resting Sea was shortlisted in the Bath Novella-In-Flash Award. He is a Fiction Editor at New Flash Fiction Review and co-founder of the Flash Monsters!!! blog. His work can be followed at alkratz.com.   

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: THE OCEANDWELLER, by Saeed Tavanaee Marvi (translated by Khashayar Mohammadi

THE OCEANDWELLER
Saeed Tavanaee Marvi translated by Khashayar Mohammadi
$4

the sounds of the Ocean
all sounds crash into cliffs
I recite all my poems to the Ocean 

soft music. we go inside the OceanCruiser. The OceanDweller walks among the white Poplars. We can hear the rustling of leaves. while walking on the dried leaves he speaks of the genesis of Song

a flower has bloomed
dried root       
            lively crown 

            some reprieve. the voice changes its timbre

Asuriq was the first flower on this planet; its pollen carried by the comet Indra to the depths of this planet’s oceans. Long roots and small leaves. Volcanic cycles made the flower surface 130 million years ago. Humanity had not yet come to earth.. It was the time of birds, alone with flowers on the surface. it was then that songs began to take form. the first song was a dialogue between the birds and Asuriq.

            the room. The television speaks in Farsi. No sound of birds.
     the poem is recited with soft music in the background.

I dreamt of you
it was spring
we were walking
you cried
there were no flowers

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

further of his translations of Marvi's work appeared recently at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics

cover image: Babak Tavanaee Marvi

Saeed Tavanaee Marvi is a poet and translator born in the city of Mashhad in 1983. His books include The Woman With Chlorophyllic eyes, Verses of Death: An Anthology of American Poetry and a translation of Richard Brautigan’s Tokyo Montana Express.

Khashayar Mohammadi is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer, Translator and Photographer. He is the author of poetry chapbooks Moe’s Skin by ZED press 2018, Dear Kestrel by knife | fork | book 2019 and Solitude is an Acrobatic Act by above/ground press 2020. His debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press in Spring 2021

This is Mohammadi’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after Solitude is an Acrobatic Act (2020).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Cam Gordon reviews G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #11 (2020) in Broken Pencil

Cam Gordon was good enough to provide the first review of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #11, edited by Elizabeth Robinson (2020) over at Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

‘Guest #11’ feels like a final artifact of a time that is never coming back

Zine, Elizabeth Robinson (editor), 60 pgs, above/ground press, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, ON K1H 7M9

Short on words and high on concept, Guest 11 is a delicate collection of prose, poems and short stories. Each edition of this journal from above/ground press features a different guest editor. When Elizabeth Robinson took the wheel, she invited nine contributors, all of them recent contacts from her life and work.

Not unlike lovely silly stuff like the Ultimate Fighting Championship and the first four Led Zeppelin numbers, it’s a good collection in terms of variety. Interestingly, Robinson wrote the foreward for this collection in early, early March 2020 — mere days before the COVID-19 pandemic truly began to ravage the planet. Thus, the zine already feels like a final artifact of a time that is never coming back. Given that Robinson chose poets and pals with whom she had recently communicated to be the contributors, it’s both recent and distant, and there’s a sadness, a kind of warp to the experience of reading it. This might not have been planned. But this is straight poetry here, and its grace is that it isn’t trying to do too much, nor be overly smart or pulpy or of the moment.

This is a passion project to be sure, and given the breadth and scope that these works offer, there’s probably something for everyone here.

new from above/ground press: Bridge and Burn, by Jason Christie

Bridge and burn
Jason Christie
$4

A stereo falls in the forest, in HD, a radio falls
And nobody hears because they weren’t there,
Weren't wearing headphones, weren’t paying
The high cost of attention to their surroundings.
What I wanted to say got lost somewhere nearby.
A duck walks into the, um, lemonade store and
Uh, says could you put this Chapstick on my bill?
Could you bill me later for this stick, chap? Could
You stick me later with this bill for your chapbook?
Tossing and turning, whispering sweet nothings
To myself like: retreat or surrender, turning it over
And tossing it all away in the morning, like who knows
Better than some quack with a feather stuck in his cap?
I certainly don’t have a viable idea for our garbage
Other than to keep it in a locked bin in the alleyway.
As to when I might get paid for my unique
Sense of what colours should go together or
Which celebrity couple should next get caught
Making out in the moonlight, I don’t want to say.
Anyway, what I would say instead is that I don’t
Want to pretend to tell you how to read this
Poem, or what to make of your own boundaries.
Which is itself a kind of beginning and end. On
The one hand, I’ve invoked you now. And who
Will you become in the confines of this writing?
Who will you be tomorrow, or the next day, and
What side would you order, if you could, what
Kind of wine to accompany your main course? You
Are going to get it (hopefully) where it resembles
That whistling sound when the noises of day fade
Coming from the void inside every object. And now
I’ll show you out. That, my friends, in short defines
What it means to consolidate power by organizing
The things you can’t do yourself and making them
Recognize your sovereignty (even if you pay for it).
It is all part of the authorial illusion that I know
Of what I write, and you will eventually know too,
That we’ve made a kind of bargain to be here
Together in an act of understanding what it means
To write this all down, what it means to read it.
These words are the result of immense privilege,
They represent a kind of immaculate waste that
Burns at the cost of ignoring important, vital things
Occurring all around me, and possibly around you.
What price, to escape that awful limit that keeps
Binding me to the letters I’ve set down in this way?
What cost, to understand words without a care
That they mean anything to anyone, that they matter?

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jason Christie lives and writes in Ottawa. He is the author of Canada Post (Invisible), i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and Cursed Objects (Coach House). He has just completed a new manuscript of poetry he wrote with the help of several Python scripts.

This is his seventh chapbook with above/ground press, after 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013), Cursed Objects (2014), The Charm (2015), random_lines = random.choice (2017) and glass language (excerpt) (2018).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Johnson, Paty, Radmore, O'Reilly, Norris + Gold,

Chris Johnson has a new poem up at Train : a poetry journal; Allyson Paty is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Claudia Coutu Radmore has a new essay in the "Talking Poetics" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter, as well as an obituary for Ottawa poet Lesley Strutt; Nathanael O'Reilly is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; and Ken Norris and the late Artie Gold etcetera have work in the newly-revamped mouse eggs.

new from above/ground press: micro moonlights, by katie o'brien

micro moonlights
katie o'brien
$5

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

katie o’brien is a poet, community worker, and Netflix enthusiast originally from St. John’s, Ktaqamkuk, on unceded Beothuk land. They currently live in Mohkínstsis, on Treaty 7 territory, and recently founded blood orange, an experimental poetry tarot. micro moonlights is their first above/ground chapbook. katie dislikes lying, sings a lot, and doesn’t kill bugs.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: Less Dream, by N.W. Lea

Less Dream
N.W. Lea
$5

Driver


No essential sentences
for this, um, essence.

Drove through the night,
harmonies barking.

I’ve always been afraid of,
or to, sleep. I’ve always

had to pay those attention tariffs,
had to wrestle specters.

The meaner memes.
No...no decentralizing force here.

No blowout combing twilight,
my eye’s lights. Drove

into new days, just a mess

of essences.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

N.W. Lea is a poet living in Whitehorse, Yukon (also, his birthplace) with his supernal partner and their wild and beautiful daughter. Find his books at invisiblepublishing.com.

This is Lea’s fifth above/ground press chapbook, after light years (2006), Present! (2014), Nervous System (2018) and Five Mothers (2019).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Scott Bryson reviews Derek Beaulieu's CABARET (2020) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of Derek Beaulieu's CABARET (2020) over at Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

Chapbook, Derek Beaulieu, 14 pgs, above/ground press, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $4

It doesn’t take long to grasp the technicality of what this is — in Derek Beaulieu’s words, “symmetrical visual poetry, all using the same typeface.” The stumper is why it’s so hard to turn away from it. Perhaps bewilderment breeds amusement.

Beaulieu’s latest collection of concrete poems begin from central, seemingly random letters or punctuation marks, with like letters radiating out in two directions. It creates something that’s not quite a mirrored image or an inkblot, but the opposite sort of reflection, if there’s a name for that.

After a short time communing with these images, you’ll likely give up trying to decipher what, if anything, the selection or arrangement of letters means. Your focus will turn instead to the method behind the symmetry, as you maddeningly turning the page around and around to see what it looks like from every direction. Satisfied that a symmetry of sorts does exist, you’ll move on to the shape and the typeface, Does it suggest anything? The text is certainly carnivalesque and whimsical, a marquee font if there is one — deserving of the title Cabaret. The smaller designs could be headlines from a performance poster.

In the end, this appears to be more a feast for the eyes than a puzzle to decode. It demands your engagement, which on its own is a desirable achievement.

some author activity: Cortese, mclennan, Vaughan, Cooley, Saklikar + Turnbull

Franco Cortese answers the "12 or 20 questions"; rob mclennan recently posted a poem for the late RM Vaughan; Dennis Cooley has a poem in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Renée Sarojini Saklikar has helped launch "Poetry Phone" through the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, providing "Vancouver's first free poetry hotline," and featuring readings by Vancouver poets; and Chris Turnbull has some new work up at The Pi Review.

some author activity: Earl, Reid, Kaplan, Deutch + mclennan,

An excerpt of Amanda Earl's "Beast Body Epic" is online at Osmosis, and a statement on her ongoing project, "The Vispo Bible," is now online at The Babel Tower Notice Board; Monty Reid is interviewed in the "Six Questions" series over at the Chaudiere Books blog; Genevieve Kaplan has some new work up as part of rob mclennan's Spotlight series; Amanda Deutch has some new work in issue #6 of Leon Literary Review; and rob mclennan answers a few questions at the Kenyon Review online.

Pearl Pirie's #95 Books : Amanda Earl + The Peter F. Yacht Club #29

Pearl Pirie was good enough to include two above/ground press titles as part of her ongoing #95 Books list for 2021. You can catch her full (ongoing) list here.

17. Aftermath of scenes of a woman convalescing by Amanda Earl (above/ground, 2019) is a chapbook about health problems in language-y ways and more straight spoken vignettes. Both work to capture the feeling of incapacity.

8. Peter F Yacht Club #29 (above/ground, 2020) is in a new smaller format, which is great because the full 8 1/2 x 11 don’t fit my shelves. Great poems by Monty Reid and Amanda Earl. A new one by me in there. I have extras if you want a copy. I believe it is part of an above/ground subscription. It’s like a mystery poetry party gift every few weeks.