announcing: G U E S T #17, a (periodicities) folio and an online launch,

On Thursday, June 3^rd, 2021 there will be an online launch for Melanie Dennis Unrau’s guest-edited issue of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors], a print issue that features new work by Yvonne Blomer, Kiran Malik-Khan, Peter Christensen, K.B. Thors, Nicholas Molbert, Rina Garcia Chua, Tawahum Bige, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, David Martin, Ross Belot, Bola Opaleke, Adam Dickinson, Lindsay Bird, Kelly Shepherd, Maya Weeks, Lisa Mulrooney + Rita Wong.

The issue itself doesn’t announce officially until Thursday morning (where you can find her introduction to the issue online at https://guestpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/) but you can totally pre-order (that’s what we’re calling it, yep) via the paypal button (because I have a huge box of them sitting here, I mean really)

G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] : issue #17
guest-edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Canadian/American/International rates (including shipping

Canadian orders $6.00 CAD American orders $7.00 CAD International orders $11.00 CAD

and, appearing simultaneously to the G U E S T issue [7am CDT/9am EDT] will be:
energy stories : folio
edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics
as a supplemental folio to G U E S T #17
which will land on Thursday morning at https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/ along with an introduction by Unrau
with new writing by Sarah-Jean Krahn, Arleen Paré, Kathy Fisher, David C. Brydges + Dymphony Dronyk

INFORMATION ON THE THURSDAY AFTERNOON READING:
June 3, 2021 : 2:30pm CDT/4:30 EDT
|see facebook link here for information: https://www.facebook.com/events/3149594938632418
lovingly hosted by Melanie Dennis Unrau
with readings by participating authors:
Yvonne Blomer, Kiran Malik-Khan, Peter Christensen, K.B. Thors, Rina Garcia Chua, David Martin, Ross Belot, Lindsay Bird, Kelly Shepherd and Lisa Mulrooney

 

 

Melanie Dennis Unrau respectfully acknowledges the original caretakers of the land known as Treaty 1/Winnipeg, where she lives as a settler of mixed European ancestry on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis Nation, with water from Shoal Lake in Treaty 3 territory and with electricity from Treaty 1,3, and 5 territory, where the Northern Flood Agreement has never been implemented. Melanie is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a Research Affiliate at the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities. She is the author of Happiness Threads: The Unborn Poems (Muses’ Company, 2013), a co-editor of Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat (Palgrave, 2014), a former editor and poetry editor at Geez magazine, and a former co-editor of The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada.

Vallum magazine : Publishing in Canada: A Panel Discussion (archived,

In case anyone wanted to catch that publishing panel I was on, hosted by Vallum magazine, with other panelists Hazel and Jay MillAr, Dane Swan, Gail Scott, Ashley Obscura and Catherine Cormier-Larose, it is now very much online. See?

some author activity: Robinson, Siklosi, Betts, Etherin + Niespodziany,

Elizabeth Robinson has some new work up at Posit; Kate Siklosi, Gregory Betts and Nasser Hussain are interviewed by Anthony Etherin and Clara Daneri as part of Episode 24 of The Penteract Podcast; and forthcoming author Benjamin Niespodziany is a runner up for the 2021 Greg Grummer Poetry Contest over at phoebe.

some author activity, dueck, Dowling, Higdon, Barwin + Reid,

nathan dueck has two new poems and a statement up as part of the Spotlight series; Sarah Dowling is being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Hailey Higdon has a new poem in Typo; Gary Barwin has an essay on the CBC website on surviving lockdown; and Monty Reid has some new work up at Train : a poetry journal.

Penteract Press interviews above/ground press

Anthony Etherin [noted above/ground press author] recently sent me a small handful of interview questions on above/ground press, which he has now posted as part of the Penteract Press website. Thanks so much! Apparently he's slowly working a series of interviews with small and micro presses, so I would recommend keeping an eye out on what might next emerge, yes?

some author activity: Graham, Stuart, Konchan, Simpson, Siklosi, Turner + Rogal,

Lea Graham has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Kate Siklosi (a collaboration with psw) and Cecilia Stuart and even Virginia Konchan; Natalie Simpson has a new poem up at Train : a poetry journal; Michael Turner is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Stan Rogal has new poems up at where is the river.

new from above/ground press: SOME OTHER DAYS AND NIGHTS, by David Miller

SOME OTHER DAYS AND NIGHTS
David Miller
$5

A Life of Prayer

    A spiritual leader, a prophet, arose amongst us. He foretold a terrible purge: a divine scourge, no less, which threatened a horrible death to numerous of us.
    To some – and I add, without bragging, that I was one – he also said darkly that the purge didn’t merely relate to the future, but that it had been going on in secret for quite some time.
    We were enjoined to purify ourselves: to renounce sex as harmful – deadly, even – to the body and the spirit. In order to achieve this, we had to separate ourselves from any females. To this end, he exhorted us to seclude ourselves and pray for deliverance.
    To the consternation of many, his message seemed aimed almost exclusively – if not, indeed, exclusively – at the male of the species.
    When pressed, he did, however, say that females should also seclude themselves, avoiding sexual intercourse, and pray.
    There were other objections, of course: most especially, that our species would die out. He responded that it was the only way to avoid the scourge, and that it was far preferable a fate. Many of us believed him; but not all did.
    We male followers found some old ruins and set up there: a place of refuge, where we could feel safe. A monastery, one of our more educated brethren calls it. I have my own small chamber: it’s home now.
    Hunting during the day – for we have not been instructed to become vegetarians – we spend the evenings at our devotions.
    Folding my front legs and allowing my antennae to twitch with anticipation, I repeat over and over the sacred words: ‘I’m green, I pray, I live’.
    Saved, I say to myself; saved.

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

cover artwork: “untitled” © the author

David Miller’s recent publications include Reassembling Still: Collected Poems (Shearsman, 2014), Spiritual Letters (Contraband Books, 2017), Towards a Menagerie (Chax Press, 2019) and Matrix I & II (Guillemot Press, 2020). He edited The Alchemist’s Mind: a book of narrative prose by poets (Reality Street, 2012). Originally from Australia, he currently lives in London and Bridport, Dorset.

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 Breakers (Expanded), by Amish Trivedi

The Breakers (Expanded)
Amish Trivedi
$5

Addiction to a Friend of Mine

Ready to shake this game of things-
a furniture rope of burnt offers:
too many eggs blessing.  A

delicate rewind, her fingers
preferred to digest the saturated
soil, a Hare Gunge!

bending higher states in.  Driving
on a filament, this scheme of things.
A care would like a word on a

wing, fiddling like a standing
light more. To this movement,
we are a gutter.

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

an earlier version of this was published in 2008 as part of Absent magazine.

Amish Trivedi wrote Sound/Chest (Coven 2015) and Your Relationship to Motion Has Changed (Shearsman 2019). He has an MFA and PhD and lives in Maryland.

This is Trivedi’s fourth above/ground press chapbook, after The Destructions (2015), What We Remembered Before the Fire (2018) and The Universe is an Earth-Shaped Urn (2021).

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: Boyle, Kratz, Joseph, Johnson, Eleftherion, Koss, Cortese, Kaplan + Betts,

Frances Boyle has a new poem up at Literary Mama, three at Anti-Heroin Chic, and further in issue #11 of CP Quarterly; Al Kratz has a new essay over at my (small press) writing day; Alexander Joseph's above/ground press debut is written up in an article for The Mountain Ear, and he was interviewed as part of The Mountain Ear Podcast; Chris Johnson has a new poem posted as part of National Poetry Month at the Chaudiere Books blog, as do Melissa Eleftherion and Frances Boyle and Zane Koss and Franco Cortese and Genevieve Kaplan; and Gregory Betts has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series.