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

 

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

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Phil Hall

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Cameron Anstee
Jennifer Baker
Douglas Barbour
Andrew Burke
David Currie
Stan Dragland
Susan Gillis
Mark Goldstein
Robert Hogg
Ann Ireland
rob mclennan
Eirin Moure
Pearl Pirie
John Steffler
Chris Turnbull

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 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)

Phil Hall has published five chapbooks with above/ground press, including Verulam (2009), the collaborative Shikibu Shuffle (with Andrew Burke; 2012), Alternative Girders (with Stuart Kinmond; 2018) and A Wolf Lake Chorus (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: FALSE NARRATIVES, by Ken Norris

FALSE NARRATIVES
Ken Norris
$5

PREPARING FOR APRIL

Suddenly there’s a hum of Spring in the air.
And the mind goes hunting
for yellow tulips at midnight.
I caught myself looking at the girls
in that old-fashioned way—full of desire.
I forgot my age and my ailing body.

The river’s been flowing for weeks now.
All that’s left is a rim of ice,
and it floats there, waiting for the finality
of a warm sunny day.
It’s coming, and poets will sharpen their pencils
and write the latest invocation of Spring.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2022
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. Norris is Professor Emeritus at the University of Maine, where he taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing for thirty-three years. He currently resides in Toronto.

This is Ken Norris’ tenth 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), Stray Dog Café (2021) and The Traveling Wilburys Collection (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: mclennan, Robertson, Rogal, Maloukis + Niespodziany,

rob mclennan takes the Galaxy Brain Questionnaire over at Michael Murray's Galaxy Brain; Lisa Robertson writes on the colour rose for Cabinet magazine; Stan Rogal has a new poem up at Train : a poetry journal; Rose Maloukis has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series via the dusie blog; and Benjamin Niespodziany has a one-sentence story over at MonkeyBicycle.

The Poetics of Space: Spotlight on the Super 8 Films of Steph Gray, Curated by Milada Kovacova

The Poetics of Space: Spotlight on the Super 8 Films of Steph Gray, Curated by Milada Kovacova

Available Everywhere Online and On-demand
August 5th to August 11th at the8fest.com

*Tune in for the live Artist Talk with Steph Gray in conversation with Milada Kováčová on Thursday August 11th at 7PM EDT! ASL and live closed captioning will be available.*

“Steph’s movies’ DIY spirit takes me back to the excitement of the 2000s when Will Munro and company were rocking Toronto. DIY was at its finest. Steph makes me lament what no longer is but what is so important to experience.” —Milada Kováčová

Steph Gray's Super 8 films have screened internationally, and in Canada, with screenings at Antimatter, Inside Out, CSIF $100 Film Fest, Cinemuerte and live performed at the8fest and Splice This! Usually edited-in-camera and sometimes hand-processed, Gray’s films are accompanied by live reading or experimental sound, while exploring the city symphonically or digging in the depths of pop culture and contemplating “what you thought you knew / what you knew you thought”. Gray’s last two poetry publications are on Ottawa-based above/ground press, including Words Are What You Get / You Do It For Real.

More details to come at the8fest.com

the latest above/ground press stapler,

now that the prior one has finally stopped working properly. Although I can't recall if this is stapler #6 or stapler #7 over the past near-thirty years (and 1,201 publications-to-date). I most likely have all the prior ones around here somewhere (and even the original Talon magazine/Talonbooks stapler from the early 1960s, gifted by Karl Siegler back in the late 1990s). Already this new device has helped considerably, assembling the latest "Report from the Society" festschrift title (to announce soon, once the unsuspecting subject of the publication sees copies land on their doorstep). Have you been keeping track of the festschrifts that have already appeared? Exciting!

some author activity: parizeau, Ball, Rukeyser, mclennan + Burgoyne,

df parizeau has a new poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series via the dusie blog; there is a short write-up on the work of the late Nelson Ball, as well as some poems, up at brief poems; Susan Rukeyser reads her piece "Less a man than a gun" over at YouTube; rob mclennan is interviewed by Colin Dardis over at Fill Your Books!; and Sarah Burgoyne reads work from her new Turret House Press chapbook over at YouTube.

Graham Sigurdson reviews Amanda Earl's a field guide of fanciful bugs (2021) at Broken Pencil

Graham Sigurdson was good enough to provide a review of Amanda Earl's a field guide to fanciful bugs (2021) over at Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! This is actually the second review of such, after Bryce Warnes reviewed such over at The Pamphleteer. You can see Sigurdson's original review here; although I should mention that, while this is the ninth chapbook above/ground press has done of Earl's work, it isn't the ninth chapbook the press has done of her visuals (this seems an important distinction).

A field guide of fanciful bugs

Originally published as an ebook in 2010, a field guide to fanciful bugs is the ninth chapbook of Amanda Earl’s visual poetry from Ottawa’s above/ground Press. The fanciful bugs in question here are several visual poems made up of single letters or small words. A group of M’s are arranged cleverly, labeled as “The Gnasher.” Several V’s make up “the vampire mosquito.” It’s a playful idea-and indeed, ‘whimsy’ is one of Earl’s stated goals in her bio. But the relationships between letter form, image, poem, and name are rocky and inconsistent, prompting unease. A group of V’s are “the snow bugs,” while later an arrangement of the name ‘Max’ is “the small butterflies of Max Ernst.” The central idea of these visual poems is revealed at the end of the chapbook, but rather than building out a logic to justify it, it feels like a sudden gear shift toward the end. On her website, Earl notes that she has grapheme synaesthesia, where in colour and text often blend together in her perception. Considered through this lens, things make a little more sense, with the folding text and interplay of shapes likely looking significantly different to those who experience this. In this sense, a field guide to fanciful bugs serves as a strong example of synaesthesic art at work. I only wish I’d been able to enter the experience a bit more.

TODAY IS THE TWENTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY OF ABOVE/GROUND PRESS! AND WE'RE HAVING A BIG RIDICULOUS SUMMER SALE!

Happy birthday, above/ground press! In case you hadn’t heard, today is the TWENTY-NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF CONTINUOUS PRODUCTION for above/ground press (which has now achieved 1,200 publications to date) and to celebrate such, I thought, why not offer a huge summer sale? (I mean, people love those, right?)

$35 (plus shipping) for any eight 2021/2022 titles! Or, if you are feeling particularly brave, $40 for any ten 2021/2022 titles! (until September 1, 2022!

with options including plenty of 2022 titles so far: Report from the (Cameron) Anstee Society Vol. 1 No. 1 ; Reading The Great Classics Of Canlit through Book 5 of bpNichol’s The Martyrology, by Grant Wilkins ; Natural Man, by N.W. Lea ; Silts, by Jed Munson ; AN ENVELOPE FOR SILENCE: Some Short Fiction 1977-1989, by David Miller ; looping climate, by Matthew Gwathmey ; Report from the (Monty) Reid Society Vol. 1 No. 1 ; In the shadows, by Michael Boughn ; west coast shorts, by Laura Kelsey ; English Garden Bondage, by Russell Carisse ; In-Between, Poetry by Saba Pakdel, a non-corresponding bilingual English/Persian collection ; Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright, by Jérôme Melançon ; G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #23 : edited by David Dowker : with new work by Nicole Raziya Fong, Lisa Robertson, ryan fitzpatrick, Catriona Strang, Allegra Sloman, Nikki Sheppy, Fenn Stewart, Pete Smith and Christine Stewart ; Report from the (Elizabeth) Robinson Society, Vol. 1 No. 1 ; Divination, by Marita Dachsel ; Andante: Scales and Proportions for a Chemical Orchestra Amid the Fraying Social Norms, by Anne Tardos ; Okay?, by Lori Anderson Moseman ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #33 : with new work by Howie Good, Jérôme Melançon, Genevieve Kaplan, Cecilia Stuart, ryan fitzpatrick, Benjamin Niespodziany, Maw Shein Win, Margo LaPierre, Sarah Pinder and Michael Boughn ; Report from the (Kate) Siklosi Society, Vol. 1 No. 1 and No. 2 ; COLVILLE SUITE FOR MIXED VOICES, by Vivian Lewin ; SCRIED FUNDAMENTS, pomes by MLA CHERNOFF ; Visions of Bolaño, by Wade Bell ; pandemic friendship, by Joanne Arnott ; G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #22 : edited by Kyle Flemmer : with new work by Leslie Joy Ahenda, Jake Byrne, Cobra Collins, nathan dueck, Kyle Flemmer, Helen Hajnozcky, Samantha Jones, Jun-long Lee, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Helen Robertson, Ben Robinson, Eric Schmaltz, Cristalle Smith and Kevin Stebner ; ELEGIES, by Rob Manery ; 3¢ Pulp, by Lillian Nećakov ; Report from the (Stuart) Ross Society Vol 1. No. 1 ; Report from the (Amanda) Earl Society Vol 1. No. 1 ; THE BEFORE, an excerpt from Welcome to Upper Zygonia, by Amanda Earl ; G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #20 : produced also as CASTLE GRAYSKULL 1.5, directed by Skeletor edited by Micah Ballard and Garrett Caples : with new work by Colter Jacobsen (as Teela), Anne Waldman, Brian Lucas, Carrie Hunter, Roberto Harrison, Neeli Cherkovski, Raymond Foye and Bob Flanagan, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Tamas Panitz and Gregory Corso ; Report from the (Stephen) Brockwell Society Vol 1. No. 1 ; ECO BLUES: A tale in 3 parts, by Karl Jirgens ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #32 : with new work by Carrie Hunter, Emily Brandt, Lillian Necakov, David Buuck, Hugh Thomas and Nate Logan ; DISSECTIONS, df parizeau ; aversions   //   nothing special, by Wanda Praamsma ; RESIDUE, by Lydia Unsworth ; Kid Stigmata, by Michael Schuffler ; Calling to the Sun: Poems for Isabella Wang, edited by Stephen Collis : with contributions by: Manahil Bandukwala, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, Yvonne Blomer, Stephen Collis, Zoe Dagneault, Diana Hayes, Erica Hiroko Isomura, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Jen Sookfong Lee, Natalie Lim, Tanis MacDonald, rob mclennan, Hasan Namir, Chimedum Ohaegbu, Tolu Oloruntoba, Arleen Paré and Rob Taylor ; Autobiography, by rob mclennan ; Small Print, by Natalie Simpson ; Apricot, by Nate Logan ;

as well as the plethora of 2021 chapbook titles: 13 more songs the radio won’t play …, by Stan Rogal ; Microbial Soup Kiss, by Sean Braune and Émilie Dionne ; The 66,512, by Urië V-J (James Yeary) ; Fire and Flood: Enacting Rehearsal as Performance, by Sarah Rosenthal ; So/I, by Andy Weaver ; oh the iffy night, by Simon Brown ; Yesterday’s Tigers, by Mayan Godmaire ; A Wolf Lake Chorus, by Phil Hall ; how to count to ten, by Kevin Varrone ; Whatever Feels Like Home, by Susan Rukeyser ; G o n e S o u t h, by Barry McKinnon ; The Northerners, by Benjamin Niespodziany ; THE TRAVELING WILBURYS COLLECTION, by Ken Norris ; W / \ S H: INITIAL CONTACT, by Terri Witek and Amaranth Borsuk ; Hotels, by George Bowering ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #31 : with new poems by Brandon Brown, Rusty Morrison, Yoyo Comay, Stephen Brockwell, Melissa Eleftherion, Sue Bracken, Valerie Witte and Jessi MacEachern ; G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #19 : edited by Pearl Pirie : with new work by Cameron Anstee, Claudia Radmore, Lana Crossman, Rae Armantrout, Maxianne Berger, Rick Black, Charlotte Jung, Louisa Howerow, Anna Yin, Philomene Kocher, David Groulx, Monty Reid, Rob Taylor, Hifsa Ashraf, Geof Huth, Allison Chisholm, Michael Fraser, Phil Hall, Michael e. Casteels, Rich Schnell, Michael Dylan Welch, Janick Belleau, Sacha Archer and Chuck Brickley ; STRAY DOG CAFÉ, by Ken Norris ; ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH, by Franklin Bruno ; SAYING “BOY” IN A WILDERNESS OF SONG, by Gary Barwin ; Never Have I Ever, by Emily Izsak ; Mushrooms Yearly Planner, by Jen Tynes ; G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #18 : edited by Melissa Eleftherion : with new work by Caroline Goodwin, Nancy Chen Long, Elise Ficarra, Brenda Iijima, Florencia Milito, Saba Syed Razvi, Aileen Cassinetto, Zoe Tuck and Kim Shuck ; Listening Through the Body: An Exercise in Sustained Coordination, by Valerie Witte ; From Each Forthcoming, by Robert Hogg ; the girl arrived, by Ken Sparling ; Television Poems, by Jessi MacEachern ; small colossus, by Nathan Alexander Moore ; Study, by Katie Naughton ; Do You Ever Think of Me?, by Summer Brenner ; Ordinary Annals, by Monica Mody ; The End of Lake Superior, by Kōan Anne Brink ; TWETWE, an alt-text pandemoir, by Gregory Betts ; HAWAIIAN SUNRISE, by Ken Norris ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #30 : with new poems by Dana Teen Lomax, Amanda Auerbach, Jay Millar, Cat Tyc, IAN MARTIN, Paige Carabello, Emma Tilley and Jack Jung ; Boing, Extinction VS Wow! Signal, Michael Sikkema ; SOME OF THE PUZZLES, by M.A.C. Farrant ; G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #17, edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau : with 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 ; WORM     HOLES, After Cao Fei’s La Town, by Jamie Townsend ; In the Museum, by Conor Mc Donnell ; Kid Commitment Proves Them Wrong, by Adam Thomlison ; Retrofit Me, by Alyssa Bridgman ; Labour Day, by James Lindsay ; SOME OTHER DAYS AND NIGHTS, by David Miller ; The Breakers (Expanded), by Amish Trivedi ; that i want, by Ava Hofmann ; Knife with Oral Greed, by JoAnna Novak ; I am a language you are the sound device, by Sandra Moussempès translated by Eléna Rivera ; Clinging & Grasping, by Franklin Bruno ; a grain of sand, Photograph by Julya Hajnoczky Poem by Helen Hajnoczky ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #29 : with new poems by Bill Carty, Michael Turner, Nina Vega-Westhoff, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Colby Clair Stolson, Robert Hogg, Elizabeth Robinson, Tom Prime and Simina Banu ; a journal of the plague year, by Edward Smallfield ; still life with elegy, by Valerie Coulton ; The Hotdog Variations, by James Hawes ; The Great Beauty, by Anik See ; Chronotope, by David Dowker ; zero dawn, by Shelly Harder ; buttons & bones, by Alexander Joseph ; a field guide to fanciful bugs, by Amanda Earl ; OCCUPATIONAL ELEGIES, Joseph Mosconi ; Moonbathing in Al Faiyūm, by Brenda Iijima ; Transmissions from the Crawdad Constellation, by Michael Sikkema ; OFF THE RESTING SEA, by Al Kratz ; THE OCEANDWELLER, by Saeed Tavanaee Marvi, translated by Khashayar Mohammadi ; Bridge and burn, by Jason Christie ; micro moonlights, by katie o'brien ; Less Dream, by N.W. Lea ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #28 : with new poems by MLA Chernoff, Geoffrey Olsen, Douglas Barbour, Hamish Ballantyne, JoAnna Novak, Allyson Paty and Lisa Fishman ; Geometric Mantra, by Andrew Brenza ; and The Universe in an Earth-Shaped Urn, by Amish Trivedi ;

That’s some one hundred and twenty titles! This list obviously includes issues of the quarterly Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], the occasional and guest-edited G U E S T [a journal of guest editors], the Report from the Society festschrift titles, and chapbooks in the above/ground press prose/naut series; all titles available while supplies last (like, obviously), although everything listed above is (at this point of writing, at least) all still very much in print; and you know I’m also completely open to backdating a 2022 above/ground press subscription, yes? I mean, that's a pretty remarkable deal.

To order, send cheques (as well as your list of preferred titles; add $3 for postage; in US, add $5; outside North America, add $11) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

with numerous rarities/backlist titles still available as well! And you remember we still have a handful of t-shirts, right? And those 25th anniversary broadsides?

with further forthcoming 2022 titles by Lindsey Webb, Jason Heroux, Nick Chhoeun, Grant Wilkins, Isabel Sobral Campos, Mark Scroggins, Laura Walker, Adrienne Adams, Jordan Davis, Jason Christie, Geoffrey Nilson, Andrew Gorin, Lori Anderson Moseman, Melissa Spohr Weiss, Marita Dachsel, Stuart Ross, Genevieve Kaplan, Christopher Patton, Angela Caporaso, Isabella Wang (among others, of course) and Sara Lefsyk’s guest-edited issue of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors]! Oh, and Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #34 lands next week as well!

and while we, at above/ground press world headquarters, otherwise known as above/ground press print and digital poetry solutions, know that we are living in unprecedented times, what choice have we but to persevere, and move forward? while being attentive to physical safety, hand-washing and mental stability as best as possible. we wish you all continued health and safety, please! we will still be here, even through the disruptions, attempting to produce new books, journals and broadsides as best as we are able (and in the meantime, of course, check out the online extension of above/ground: periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics). And who knows, we might even be able to re-start both The Factory Reading Series and the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair this fall? Maybe? And next year, we’ll have a huge event to celebrate THIRTY YEARS (with a ‘best of the third decade’ anthology as well, to appear in fall 2023 with Invisible Publishing. That will be pretty cool,

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

 

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

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Cameron Anstee

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Kemeny Babineau
Jennifer Baker
Michael e. Casteels
Nicole Chin
Jack Davis
Beth Follett
Phil Hall
Robert Hogg
Marilyn Irwin
Gil McElroy
rob mclennan
Justin Million
Lillian Nećakov
Pearl Pirie
Sandra Ridley
Stuart Ross
Bardia Sinaee
Mark Truscott
Grant Wilkins
Rob Winger

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 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)

Cameron Anstee has published two chapbooks with above/ground press, including Frank St. (2010) and Regarding Renewal (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: Kaplan, Simpson, Boyle, eckhoff + Rosenthal,

Genevieve Kaplan is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Natalie Simpson is video-interviewed via Gap Riot Press; Frances Boyle has a new poem up in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; kevin mcpherson eckhoff has a new comedy album, available here; and Sarah Rosenthal is interviewed by Heidi Van Horn for The Brooklyn Rail.