some author activity: Niespodziany, Nilson, Saklikar, Wang + Robertson,

Benjamin Niespodziany is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Geoffrey Nilson has posted to Soundcloud the audio of a reading at the New Westminster Public Library in New Westminster BC on April 9, 2022 by "Five Contemporary BC Poets": Tolu Oloruntoba, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Isabella Wang, Claire Matthews and Kevin Spenst; and Lisa Robertson is interviewed by Louis Klee for the Sydney Review of Books.

new from above/ground press: AN ENVELOPE FOR SILENCE: Some Short Fiction 1977-1989, by David Miller

AN ENVELOPE FOR SILENCE: Some Short Fiction 1977-1989
David Miller
$5

My sister and I were amongst several children invited by the older girls who lived in the house opposite ours to come by for a puppet show one afternoon. I think I was more impressed by coming inside this otherwise unavailable domain itself than by the shadow-world created by the girls' puppetry; those girls would not ordinarily have spoken to us at all: and this was thorough-going: we were invited, at the end of the little show, to come for another performance if and when we could bring entrance-money. We never saw that interior again.

Twenty-one years of age, walking by water's side; river flowing, dirty, past industrial slums, grimy walls of factories; debris and mud everywhere. I had just been to an interview for a job I didn't want, and despite all my attempts at not getting accepted, it looked like I had been anyway: what a disappointment. Actually, I wasn't just disappointed, I felt sick. Some gulls flew over; and I thought of the young woman at the labour exchange who had sent me to the interview. Her face came into focus: an attractive woman; stylish; probably a nice person. Maybe she'd go far in her job. I was going to leave the country.

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

David Miller was born in Melbourne, Australia, but has lived in the UK for many years. His recent publications include Black, Grey and White: A Book of Visual Sonnets (Veer Books, 2011), Reassembling Still: Collected Poems (Shearsman, 2014), Spiritual Letters (Contraband Books, 2017), Towards a Menagerie (Chax Press, 2019), Matrix I & II (Guillemot Press, 2020), Vitruvian Shadows  (The Red Ceilings Press, 2020) and Some Other Days and Nights (above/ground press, 2021). He has compiled British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of ‘Little Magazines’ (with Richard Price, The British Library / Oak Knoll Press, 2006) and edited The Lariat and Other Writings by Jaime de Angulo (Counterpoint, 2009) and The Alchemist’s Mind: a book of narrative prose by poets (Reality Street, 2012). He is also a musician and a member of the Frog Peak Music collective.

This is Miller’s second above/ground press title, after SOME OTHER DAYS AND NIGHTS (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: Niespodziany, Brown, Unsworth, Melançon, Mody + Eleftherion,

Benjamin Niespodziany is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Simon Brown has some work in the eleventh and final issue of antilang; Lydia Unsworth has new work online at Pamenar Press; Jérôme Melançon is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Monica Mody is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; and Melissa Eleftherion has new work up at The Hunger, hot pink mag and The Hopper.

new from above/ground press: looping climate, by Matthew Gwathmey

looping climate
Matthew Gwathmey
$5

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

Matthew Gwathmey lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on Wolastoqey Territory, with his partner Lily and their five children. He studied creative writing at the University of Virginia and just completed his PhD at UNB. His first poetry collection, Our Latest in Folktales, was published by Brick Books in the spring of 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

new from above/ground press: Report from the Reid Society. Vol. 1 No. 1

 

Report from the Reid Society
Vol 1. No. 1
edited by rob mclennan
$7

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Monty Reid

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
D.W. Adams
Cameron Anstee
Douglas Barbour
Wade Bell
Stephen Brockwell
Dennis Cooley
Rhonda Douglas
Chris Johnson
Kevin Matthews
rob mclennan
Colin Morton
David O’Meara
Pearl Pirie
Ryan Pratt
Rusty Priske
Sandra Ridley
Bren Simmers
D.S. Stymiest

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2022
full list of published reports here
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Report on the Society logo by C. McNair, editor’s devil (retired)

Monty Reid has published five chapbooks with above/ground press, including Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (2000), cuba A book (2005), In the Garden (sept series) (2011), Moan Coach (2013) and Seam (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: parizeau, mclennan, Kaminski, Johnson + Graham,

df parizeau is interviewed via the Chaudiere Books blog; rob mclennan has some new work up at Court Green, as well as an interview, conducted by Lisa Fishman; and Megan Kaminski also has some poems at Court Green; Chris Johnson has a poem up at Olney; and Lea Graham won the 2021 Michelle Boisseau Poetry Prize over at the Bear Review, where she was also interviewed.

new from above/ground press: In the shadows, by Michael Boughn

In the shadows
Michael Boughn
$5

Visitors

Angels return, dance around the edge,
twice in a day, quiet rhetorical surprises
recall the fall, protective hands, mercy
for a mortal plummet’s failed ascent
to overheard song

Earth is no pillow
and there’s no escape
from the landing, Listen,
sweetie, they sing, but keep
your feet on the ground, tap, tap
tapping, & never ever try to illuminate
The Human Condition, stick
to the pebbles stretch out
before newly minted eyes
ineluctable terrain of the fallen

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

Michael Boughn moved to Canada in October, 1966 because of opposition to the US war against Viet Nam. After studying with Robin Blaser for several years at SFU, he worked in the Teamsters on the Toronto lakeshore for nearly 10 years before returning to university in 1982 to study with poets John Clarke and Robert Creeley. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Iterations of the Diagonal, Dislocations in Crystal, 22 Skidoo / SubTractions, Great Canadian Poems for the Aged Vol. 1 Illus. Ed., and City—A Poem from the End of the World.  Cosmographia – a post-Lucretian faux micro-epic was short listed for the Canadian Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2011, prompting a reviewer in the Globe and Mail to describe him as “an obscure veteran poet with a history of being overlooked.” With Victor Coleman he edited Robert Duncan’s The H.D. Book for the University of California Press. He has also published books for young adults, including the Maple Award nominated Into the World of the Dead, a mystery novel, Business As Usual, a descriptive bibliography of the American poet, H.D., and numerous essays on film, writing, architecture and music. His most recent book is Hermetic Divagations—after H.D. From 2014 to 2018 he edited the online poetry disturbance known as Dispatches from the Poetry Wars with co-conspirator, Kent Johnson. A collection of his essays, Measure’s Measures, is forthcoming from Station Hill Press in 2022. He can most often be found with Case, his border collie pal, hanging out in dog parks or herding sheep.

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: west coast shorts, by Laura Kelsey

west coast shorts
Laura Kelsey
$5

the home, demolished

jagged pile of planks
plywood and metal
a tiny woman stoops
with bonnet already
rifling through, yanking
at wires like a bird
pulling worms 

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

cover art/design: Michael Harding

Laura Kelsey is a former newspaper editor and now a poet, performer and graphic designer living in Nanaimo/Snuneymuxw Territory, B.C. Her poems have appeared in the New Chief Tongue, the Carnegie Newsletter, pocket lint and Sea & Cedar Magazine. She has self-published three collections of poetry and releases music through www.laurakelsey.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: Pirie, Ross, Barwin, mclennan, Stuart + Chernoff,

Pearl Pirie continues her series of mini-interviews with new interviews with Stuart Ross and Gary Barwin; the Chaudiere Books blog closes National Poetry Month with a new poem by rob mclennan; Cecilia Stuart is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and MLA Chernoff is interviewed by nothing/in particular.

new from above/ground press: English Garden Bondage, by Russell Carisse

English Garden Bondage
Russell Carisse
$5

1.Brickwall

head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head stretcher stretcher’s stretcher stretcher stretcher head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head th’qt head head head head head head head th’qt head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head th’qt head head head head head head head th’qt head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head stretcher stretcher stretcher’s stretcher stretcher head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head th’qt head head head head head head head th’qt head stretcher stretcher stretcher stretcher head stretchers stretcher stretcher stretcher ‘stretcher.

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

Russell Carisse is currently living on unceded Mi'kmaw territory in New Brunswick. Here they have resettled off-grid with their family of people and animals, to grow food and practice other forms of underconsuption. Their writing can be found or forthcoming in Poetry Pause, The Anti-Langorous Project, The Quarantine Review, Funicular, The Utopia Project, The Pi Review, STILL: The Journal, Periodicities, The Paragon Journal, The Babel Tower Board, Talking About Strawberries, as well as in their self-published book, NOMOGRAPHY, on Google Books and New Brunswick Chapbook Series #18, BRICKWORKS from Frog Hollow Press.

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: In-Between, by Saba Pakdel

In-Between
Poetry by Saba Pakdel
a non-corresponding bilingual English/Persian collection
$5

lullaby

absence is a presence that never is
centuries would not pass
in an hourglass that’s falling
upside down
you did not believe in time
yet sand runs through
timelessness in a bubble
and oceans dry
does it all go back by turning the other end up?

what to do about the restlessness of the sun
the rebellious Icarus
falling to the borders of your stripped body
melts
in between your thighs
into a mirage appearing closer
yet absence still is
not standing afar
to outdistance recollections

here, is no fear
here is the fear
tall city towers fall
rows of pine trees succumb
a crowd wanders inside me
with hideous faces through the falling
I             am                  pregnant with a disaster
mother lullabies

time follows you all the way up
don’t try to move backward
shadows
are not the darkest side of absence
when trees are the presence that never is

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

Saba Pakdel (www.sabapakdel.com) is a poet, modernist scholar, and PhD student in the English department at University of Victoria. She completed her BA and MA in English language and literature in Iran. She earned her second MA in English at Simon Fraser University in 2021.

Saba has attended and coordinated literary workshops and poetry readings; published poems, translations, and essays; and collaborated in stage plays as a playwright and backstage filmmaker.

For a while, she worked as an editorial assistant at Talonbooks Publishing in Vancouver. Photography is her occasional and non-verbal means of communication with the world.

Saba specializes in migration studies and contemporary literature with a focus on exile, refugee, and immigration problems, particularly in works of migrant authors from the Middle East and Maghreb. Her research addresses the identity formation of migrants away from Euro-centric formulations based in twentieth century ideas about migration, largely derived from post-WWII circumstances, toward a contemporary reckoning with experiences of migration.

Pakdel will be launching In-Between in Victoria (in-person and virtually) on Friday, May 6 at UVic | Clearihue Building | Room C214 (2-4pm) and in Vancouver on Saturday, May 14 at This Gallery (noon-2pm). For more details, go to her website.

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