some author activity: Mohammadi, Barbour, MacEachern, Coulton + Robinson,

Khashayar Mohammadi has some new translations of poetry, by Shahin Sadeghzadeh, now up at Asymptote Journal; Edmonton Journal publishes an article on the late Douglas Barbour; Jessi MacEachern is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Valerie Coulton has begun to curate a new series of free pdf poetry chapbooks, palabrosa, which recently posted a new title by Elizabeth Robinson.

new from above/ground press: The Northerners, by Benjamin Niespodziany

The Northerners
Benjamin Niespodziany
$5

[an ekphrastic sequence written while watching the Dutch film De Noorderlingen (1992) directed by Alex van Warmerdam, to whom this chapbook is dedicated]

 

[some of these poems first appeared as daydreams on Post-It notes]

                        [1]

 

                                    The saint sleepwalks
                                    on her graveyard
                                    shift. Without her lipstick
                                    she feels like a child.

    

                        [2]

 

                                    An ashtray in the classroom.
                                    A handful of students.
                                    One boy runs in orange shoes.
                                    Makes a fire in the sand.

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

Benjamin Niespodziany's writing has appeared in the Wigleaf Top 50, Fence, Salt Hill Journal, Fairy Tale Review, and various others. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. A former Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador, he currently works nights in a library in Chicago and runs the multimedia art blog [neonpajamas].

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: Rogal, Collis, Downs + Niespodziany,

Stan Rogal has some poems up at The Pi Review; a poem by Stephen Collis is discussed by Pattie McCarthy, Kate Colby and Lily Applebaum via the Jacket2 podcast PoemTalk; an article (with interview) on Buck Downs' latest project, "The Poet Posting Stickers All Over Washington D.C.," is covered by The Click; and Benjamin Niespodziany is interviewed over at the new podcast We All Speak In Poems.

new from above/ground press: THE TRAVELING WILBURYS COLLECTION, by Ken Norris

Ken Norris
THE TRAVELING WILBURYS COLLECTION
$5

LIKE A SHIP

I shoot up bleach in my spare time.

And it is all spare time now.

I can’t concentrate—
flit from thought to thought
like a hummingbird.

The buds of Spring
seem frozen in their tracks.

And something’s happening,
something’s rotten
in the state of Denmark to the south.

Does everything sink,
or does everything
sail on
like a ship?

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

Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He came to Canada in the early 1970s, to escape Nixon-era America and to pursue his graduate education. He completed an M.A. at Concordia University and a Ph.D. in Canadian Literature at McGill University. He became a Canadian citizen in 1985. For thirty-three years he taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Maine. He currently resides in Toronto.

This is Ken Norris’ ninth above/ground press chapbook, after Windward – St. Lucia Poems (1995), The Commentaries (1999), Songs For Isabella (2000), Green Wind (2010), Looking Into It (2011), Hong Kong Blues (2019), Hawaiian Sunrise (2021) and Stray Dog Café (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

new from above/ground press: W / \ S H: INITIAL CONTACT, by Terri Witek and Amaranth Borsuk

W / \ S H: INITIAL CONTACT
Terri Witek and Amaranth Borsuk
$5

For U U:

For years now I have wondered why some creatures of those who still grace our little spinners speak in more than one voice. Not like warning vs mating shout-outs. Not like the space btwn who cooks for who cooks 4 U. Some crawlers and sailors and fliers (I hesitate to name them, as I’ve been kicked out of several know-circles for proposing this) seem to keep =here’s what sticks painfully even as I spell it into the record tree= a tongue in each wing. But if one ever found these creatures and opened them up (poor things) they’d only see O / \ or another staggered and maybe unreadable trace.

While I’ve nixed weary years trying to prove the ongoingness of these odd biological code bites, a story our mothers tell, always at unpredictable moments, makes a flickering reverb. Double and unequal worlds, they say, one nearly waterless, smokey and fire-hemmed, one glittery and rain-beaten, long before the enfolding of our seeps. Women on these worlds built devices to reach each other, they say, touching our little heads from great heights. Or maybe not devices but “machines.” As our eyelids flutter, the story =start again= tells how 2 women of far and former worlds tried to touch by channeling fire/rain or maybe breath/spit into……into……...at this point our nonas trail off, vanish into other tasks. And if, as our small dreams kindle, we try to find these 2 ancestral message trails, we’ll only get more lost. We know this even as children.

Unsure why I am recounting this now, or + - exactly where it will find U U. I comb my own bicode for trails they may have left: the hurt and whistle that marks generations after an event. Their infiltration runs deep, and each of their tears tears a rivulet in my fold-organ. I feel more than I can say, but each day am surer we’re all marked this way by a period of distance and enclosure, burn and berm. These are all I have turned up, though certainly more will arise and spill over in time. Look in U U, too, and see what ripples dripdrp across your double opals, your split tongue. I’ll keep sinking on it and & what comes.

Yours,
Sakia

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

Acknowledgments

This poem was written during fire and storm over many years. The first seeds were dropped at Atlantic Center for the Arts during a residency led by Brenda Hillman, whose help and wisdom always encourage us toward the world's strangeness. This chapbook is dedicated to Brenda, who pointed us to birdsong, who showed us other, more possible worlds.

The poems that appear here as “Dear Citizen of No Rain” and “Dear Denizen of Skyshot” first appeared in Snail Trail issue 3 (2021). We are grateful to Woogee Bae, Aya Bram, and Katelyn Oppegard.

Deep thanks to rob mclennan for his tireless support and creation of poetic community.

Terri Witek is the author of 7 books of poetry: her newest collection is The Rattle Egg (2021). Recent work has been featured in two new international anthologies: JUDITH: Women Making Visual Poetry (2021), and in the WAAVe Global Anthology of women’s asemic writing and visual poetry (forthcoming). Her many collaborations with artists and writers have been featured in performances, museum shows, and gallery exhibitions. Witek teaches Poetry in the Expanded Field in Stetson University’s MFA of the Americas with Brazilian visual artist Cyriaco Lopes, and their work together is represented by The Liminal in Valencia, Spain. terriwitek.com  

Amaranth Borsuk is a poet, scholar, and book artist working at the intersection of print and digital media. Her latest volume, The Book (MIT Press, 2018), is a concise introduction to the book’s changing technologies that bridges book history, artists’ books, and electronic literature. She has collaborated on installations, art bookmarklets, interactive works, and poems, and is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection Pomegranate Eater (Kore Press, 2016). Borsuk is Associate Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, where she also serves as Associate Director of the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. amaranthborsuk.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

some author activity: Collis, Rogal, Tierney + Boyle,

Stephen Collis is featured in the "Spotlight" series; Stan Rogal has new poems up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as well as an interview; Orchid Tierney is also interviewed there; and Frances Boyle has a new poem up at The Maynard.

new from above/ground press: Hotels, by George Bowering

Hotels
George Bowering
$5

                       1.


At the Swiss American Hotel
in San Francisco there weren't any
Swiss.

There wasn't any
lock on the door, either, just
a little loop that slipped over
a nail.

The smoke I smelled did not
resemble plankton, maybe the night breeze
through sagebrush outside
Oliver, B.C., coyotes drifting by.

No two girls on the hallway rugs, no
rugs in the hallway. No phone ringing,
in fact, no phone. What was outside
the window? I don't know, I didn't
look out the window.

They told me Lenny Bruce
was out there; wasn't he
supposed to be in here?

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

George Bowering: I have been working all year on the unpublished book Romantic Words by the late Artie Gold. I have just finished a response book, poem by poem. My 13-section “Hotels” is in response to his “Hotel Victoria.”

Hotels is George Bowering’s fifth above/ground press chapbook, after STANZAS #12 (“BLONDES ON BIKES: 1-20,” April 1997), A, You’re Adorable (as “Ellen Field,” October, 1998; reissued October 2004), Tocking Heads (ALBERTA SERIES #2, October, 2007) and That Toddlin’ Town / Baby, don’ ya wanna go? (2016).

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: Mohammadi, Wilkinson, Ross, Spinosa, Niespodziany + Hunter,

Khashayar Mohammadi has won First Place in the Vallum Award for Poetry 2021; Joshua Marie Wilkinson has work in Bennington Review; Stuart Ross has new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as does Dani Spinosa and Benjamin Niespodziany, and Carrie Hunter is even interviewed!

new from above/ground press: STRAY DOG CAFÉ, by Ken Norris

STRAY DOG CAFÉ
Ken Norris
$5

THE STRAY DOG CAFÉ

Stray dogs, stray cats—
poets, of course.

Rummaging in the knocked over
garbage cans for something

to eat. Louis liked
irking the landlady

(that feeble figure of authority)
by feeding the stray cats

and encouraging their rascality,
and all those Russian poets

down at the Stray Dog Café
were baying and howling

at the bright above-the-steppes
lunatic moon.

Don’t tell me about how
the strays that don’t belong to anyone

copulate in the back alleys
or any alleys they might find.

History happens, the mass graves
get dug and filled,

the unwanted disenfranchised
are always slaughtered.

Sometimes they live again,
momentarily, in my stray lines.

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

Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He came to Canada in the early 1970s, to escape Nixon-era America and to pursue his graduate education. He completed an M.A. at Concordia University and a Ph.D. in Canadian Literature at McGill University. He became a Canadian citizen in 1985. For thirty-three years he taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Maine. He currently resides in Toronto.

This is Ken Norris’ eighth above/ground press chapbook, after Windward – St. Lucia Poems (1995), The Commentaries (1999), Songs For Isabella (2000), Green Wind (2010), Looking Into It (2011), Hong Kong Blues (2019) and Hawaiian Sunrise (2021). A further chapbook appears later this month.

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: Barwin, Eleftherion, Barbour, Notley + Earl,

Gary Barwin's "Letraset Canon," "A canon for 3 tenor saxophones," is now up at YouTube; Melissa Eleftherion has a poem in the new issue of Lammergeier; The Book Publishers Association of Alberta has announced that they have renamed their "Speculative Fiction Book of the Year" to the "Douglas Barbour Award for Speculative Fiction"; abstracts are sought for a roundtable on the work of Alice Notley; and Amanda Earl has new visual work posted at Train : a poetry journal.

above/ground press: 2022 subscriptions now available!

TWENTY-NINE YEARS! The race to the half-century continues! And with more than ONE THOUSAND TITLES produced to date, there’s been a ton of above/ground press activity over the past year, including some FORTY-FIVE CHAPBOOKS (so far) produced in 2021 alone (including poetry chapbooks by Franklin Bruno, Gary Barwin, Emily Izsak, Jen Tynes, Valerie Witte, Robert Hogg, Ken Sparling, Jessi MacEachern, Nathan Alexander Moore, Katie Naughton, Summer Brenner, Monica Mody, Kōan Anne Brink, Gregory Betts, Ken Norris, Michael Sikkema, M.A.C. Farrant, Jamie Townsend, Conor Mc Donnell, Adam Thomlison, Alyssa Bridgman, James Lindsay, David Miller, Amish Trivedi, Ava Hofmann, JoAnna Novak, Sandra Moussempès (trans. Eléna Rivera), Franklin Bruno, Helen Hajnoczky, Edward Smallfield, Valerie Coulton, James Hawes, Anik See, David Dowker, Shelly Harder, Alexander Joseph, Amanda Earl, Joseph Mosconi, Brenda Iijima, Al Kratz, Saeed Tavanaee Marvi (trans. Khashayar Mohammadi), Jason Christie, katie o'brien, N.W. Lea, Andrew Brenza, all of which are still in print), as well as issues of the poetry journals Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] (with issues guest-edited by Pearl Pirie, Melissa Eleftherion, Melanie Dennis Unrau and Kirby, with forthcoming issues guest-edited by Edric Mesmer and Yellow Edenwald Field) and The Peter F. Yacht Club (there hasn’t been as many of these since pandemic began, but expect a new issue in early 2022, as the world begins to properly open up again). Obviously The Factory Reading Series is on hold for the time being (until I have the time and energy to begin to try to figure out something else, I suppose), but have you seen the virtual reading series over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics (with new monthly online content, by the way; the pandemic-era extension of above/ground press).

Oh, and did you see that above/ground press announced a new prose chapbook series last fall? With titles by Amanda Earl, Jane Eaton Hamilton, rob mclennan, Keith Waldrop, Kristjana Gunnars, Al Kratz, Anik See, Adam Thomlison, M.A.C. Farrant, Summer Brenner, Ken Sparling and Gary Barwin, and a forthcoming title by Sarah Rosenthal!

Just what else might happen? Forthcoming items also include works by Natalie Simpson, George Bowering, Kevin Varrone, MLA Chernoff, Wanda Praamsma, df parizeau, Sarah Rosenthal, Mayan Godmaire, Vivian Lewin, Michael Schuffler, Karl Jirgens, James Yeary, Nate Logan, Sean Braune and Émilie Dionne, Simon Brown, Andy Weaver, Stan Rogal, Matthew Owen Gwathmey, Benjamin Niespodziany, Phil Hall and Madhur Anand, Ken Norris (two new chapbooks this October!), Amaranth Borsuk and Barry McKinnon as well as a whole slew of publications that haven't even been decided on yet.

2022 annual subscriptions (and resubscriptions) are now available: $75 (CAN; American subscribers, $75 US; $100 international) for everything above/ground press makes from the moment you subscribe through to the end of 2022, including chapbooks, broadsheets, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T and quarterly poetry journal Touch the Donkey (have you been keeping track of the dozens of interviews posted to the Touch the Donkey site?). Honestly: if I’m making sixty or seventy chapbooks per calendar year, wouldn’t you call that a good deal? I mean, it all does seem ridiculous.

Anyone who subscribes on or by November 1st will also receive the last above/ground press package (or two or three) of 2021, including those exciting new titles by all of those folk listed above, plus whatever else the press happens to produce before the turn of the new year, as well as Touch the Donkey #31 (scheduled to release on October 15), a journal that turns eight years old next spring!

Why wait? You can either send a cheque (payable to rob mclennan) to 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7M9, or send money via PayPal or e-transfer to rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com (or through the PayPal button at robmclennan.blogspot.com).

Stay safe! Stay home! Wear a mask! Wash your damned hands!