new from above/ground press: COLVILLE SUITE FOR MIXED VOICES, by Vivian Lewin

COLVILLE SUITE FOR MIXED VOICES
Vivian Lewin
$5

                                         Envoi
 
 My dear, I could divide my house, give you half of it
         but what good would that do?
     I would toss, sleepless, and so would you.
             And we would neither
 
 of us, strive as we might, discover all that she sees
         nor the man behind her,
     whose faces are hidden forever
             by their creator.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Vivian Lewin lives in Montreal. She taught quilting, worked for hire in communications, and studied English literature at Oberlin College (AB, hon.) and creative writing in Florida (MFA). Her poems have surfaced in Ariel, the Fiddlehead Review, Field, and Matrix (among others). She is a licensed Anglican Lay Reader and spiritual director, and volunteers in a healing ministry.

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: SCRIED FUNDAMENTS, by MLA Chernoff

 SCRIED FUNDAMENTS
    pomes by
      MLA CHERNOFF
$5

I: HORNYSCARED AND ITS OTHER

I’ve got a fast car.
Am I qualified or is this the essence of
comedy, desire, plutonium?
Perhaps a predilection for losslessness
and knee-scraped cataracts lugging askance at
a mirror going wah-wah.
Because we are on time today, we thumb suckers
are puckering in such lonesome and discursive light.        
I will start by melting down a pome which, in actual fact,
has no relation to what I am about to say.

To the face of our ticked-back clock hack, let it be noted––
as far as the fundamentals of lockdown are concerned,
look to your nausea, smell it through the floor of your mouth
and sneer at the way your teeth are cut and let them drape
themselves along the flits and wrists of your jaw’s little superhighway:
clockwork every hour on the hour, chomping
jaunty qualms about the platonic fun our
small weather enjoys with dear old romance:
il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel, luv,
said 1.2 trillion Lex-lulls in respirate reflections––
well-pardoned flexes and reveries of messes
so global, so hexed, so quirked up
and blessed.

∞

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

MLA Chernoff (they/them/@squelch_bb) is a non-binary Jewish pome [sic] machine and a perpetual PhD candidate at The Neoliberal University of York University. They are the author of [SQUELCH PROCEDURES] (Gordon Hill Press, 2021), delet this (Bad Books, 2018), TERSE THIRSTY (Gap Riot Press, 2019), and executive dysfunction (nOIR:Z, 2021). They live, laugh, and love in Tkaronto (Treaty 13 territory).

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: Naughton, O'Reilly, Burgoyne, MacEachern, Collis + Siklosi,

Katie Naughton is interviewed in the new issue of Red Weather; Nathanael O'Reilly has a new poem up at Marathon Lit Review; Sarah Burgoyne interviews Jessi MacEachern over at Canthius; Stephen Collis is interviewed over at the Canadian Literature Podcast, "Getting Lit with Linda"; and Kate Siklosi is interviewed over at Artisanal Writer.

new from above/ground press: Visions of Bolaño, by Wade Bell

Visions of Bolaño
Wade Bell
$5

     It probably was not him.
     On the slow, local train returning to my Catalan village after a weekend in Barcelona I take a moment from reading Henry Miller and jotting down observations in my journal to glance across the aisle and a row ahead where a man frantically writes in a large red notebook.
     I wonder what he’s writing. Something powered by intense emotion, I would guess from the speed with which he wields his pen.  
     It is spring, wet, the countryside green. The train’s windows are opaque sheets of emerald rainwater.
     He senses me staring and glances over. He is gaunt, in his forties. His sculpted features are ragged, more Giacometti than Leonardo. Behind wire rim glasses are eyes of a fanatic, or addict.
     After the seaside town of Arenys de Mar, the sun appears. To catch its warmth, I take my sandwich from my packsack and scrunch against the window.
     In front of village houses potted geraniums gleam red or white. Mimosa bushes sport the identical green and gold of the University of Alberta Golden Bears basketball team uniforms. Almond trees are robed in bridal white.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2022
as the sixteenth title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Wade Bell: Born in 1941 in Stettler, Alberta, and at the age of one week was moved by my mother to an Edmonton tenement where we lived in  wartime food rationed poverty. Joining the RCAF my father had left her pregnant. I went to Carleton University, wrote my first book in Ottawa and stayed in the city to work for the CRTC.
     Following a devastating marriage breakup, I quit the safe government job and went travelling.
     Back in Ottawa in need of money I drove taxi, the lone Anglo in a French crew stationed at the bus depot. I saved some money and I left to travel again.
    Through a series of fortuitous connection made in Ireland I was invited to spend three months in Spain. I went and stayed five years.
    Many of the stories in my three subsequent books are set in Barcelona or the Catalan countryside.
    With a Spanish bride and needing money I came back to Alberta to work in the oilfields, mostly in the wilds of the boreal forest.  
    I am now 81 and living in Calgary. In addition to my four books, I have published over 50 stories and poems in literary magazines, anthologies and text books in Canada, the US, Japan, Denmark and Italy.

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: pandemic friendship, by Joanne Arnott

pandemic friendship
Joanne Arnott
$5

Bird of Wisdom

arising through bark
of tree slipping free

sweeping through corridors
tidy impositions best intentions

the world your egg
your nest the world

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Joanne Arnott is a writer, editor, arts activist, originally from Manitoba, at home on the west coast. She received the Gerald Lampert Award (LCP 1992) and the Vancouver Mayor’s Art Award for Literary Arts (2017). She has published six poetry books, a collection of short nonfiction and a children’s illustrated. Recent publications include her third poetry chapbook, Pensive & beyond (Nomados Press 2019) and the co-edited volume, Honouring the Strength of Indian Women: Plays, Stories and Poetry by Vera Manuel (U of Manitoba Press 2019).

Joanne is Poetry Mentor for The Writers Studio, Simon Fraser University, and Poetry Editor for EVENT Magazine. She is currently a Shadbolt Fellow (2021-22) at SFU. She is one of the co-founding members of the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast. Joanne is mother to six young people, all born at home with the benign support of husbands and midwives.

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

SMOL PRESS FAIR : March 19-26 (with mini-sale on chapbooks!

Hey! above/ground press is participating once more in this year's SMOL PRESS FAIR! You should check out the more than TWO HUNDRED small presses that are participating, including numerous with plenty of discounts during the next few days! And there are giveaways, readings, talks and plenty of other cool stuff! Check out their website here. As part of our participation in the event, be aware that from RIGHT NOW through to the end of March 26, 2022, ALL 2020-2022 (so far) ABOVE/GROUND PRESS TITLES ARE FIFTY PERCENT OFF! So, go through the backlist and let me know what titles appeal! And don't forget the Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] simultaneous eighth anniversary sale, yes? If any questions, obviously, send me an email (rob_mclennan at hotmail.com). There is so much chapbook and literary goodness! I mean, gadzooks. What glorious times we live in, really.

Nicholas Molbert's poem from G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] nominated for The Pushcart Prize,

Nicholas Molbert's poem, "The Prophet of Spindletop Gives Thanks after the Lucas Gusher Strikes Oil," from G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #17, edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau, has been nominated for potential inclusion in the 47th edition of their annual volume, THE PUSHCART PRIZE: BEST OF THE SMALL PRESSES (November 2022). What does it all mean? Congratulations, Nicholas Molbert and congratulations Melanie Dennis Unrau! Here's hoping his poem does get selected.

some author activity: Hall, Thomas, Niespodziany, Robinson, Mohammadi + Clayton,

Phil Hall is interviewed by Sharon Berg at The Artisanal Writer; Hugh Thomas is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Benjamin Niespodziany interviews Elizabeth Robinson over at neon pajamas; Khashayar Mohammadi is interviewed over at The Temz Review; and Conyer Clayton is also interviewed by Sharon Berg at The Artisinal Writer.

new from above/ground press: ELEGIES, by Rob Manery

ELEGIES
Rob Manery
$6

Elegy I

and yet and if
as with few

and frolic
courteous riddles

nor pampered play
but if

inhabits
another house

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image/artwork: Robyn Laba

Rob Manery lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, where he is the editor of Some, a print-only poetry magazine. With Louis Cabri, he previously edited hole magazine in Ottawa.

This is Manery’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after Richter-Rauzer Variations (2012).

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: O'Reilly, Ball, Niespodziany, Armantrout + Naughton,

Nathanael O'Reilly has some new work up at ANONTYM; remembering Nelson Ball; Benjamin Niespodziany has two prose poems in the new issue of Guesthouse; Rae Armantrout has a new poem online at The Yale Review; and Katie Naughton has new work up at Timber Journal.

new from above/ground press: 3¢ Pulp, by Lillian Nećakov

3¢ Pulp
Lillian Nećakov
$5

California Redwoods

Remember how we had to walk
all the way to Telegraph Hill
Union Square and Embarcadero
because the San Francisco Municipal Railway
was on furlough?
and we found ourselves on Russian Hill
each holding a copy of Imaginary Elegies
we had just bought at City Lights
and the ocean spread out below
like a giant hand and somewhere
in the distance, the crackling
of a transistor radio, Cielito Lindo
as the curious chemistry of hydrangea
spilled into the traffic
and for some reason we thought of
Myrna Loy and William Powell
and our oval-shaped syllables braided
into the technicolour blue spring
forming tiny soundwaves that would
later be played over KPFA Radio
on Doo Wop Delights and I would be
a Russian ballet dancer and Opal Nations
would declare checkmate in his tiny office
on Martin Luther King Jr Way in Berkley
and we would grow wild and we would
leave and the California redwoods
would remain in the twilight
of their unfathomable muteness.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Lillian Nećakov is the author of six books of poetry, numerous chapbooks, broadsides and leaflets. Her new book il virus was published in April 2021 by Anvil Press (A Feed Dog Book). In 2016, her chapbook The Lake Contains an Emergency Room was shortlisted for bpNichol chapbook award. During the 1980s she ran a micro press called “The Surrealist Poets Gardening Association” and sold her books on Toronto’s Yonge Street. She ran the Boneshaker Reading series from 2010-2020. She lives in Toronto and just might be working on a new book.

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