new from above/ground press: Dating Pete Davidson, by Leigh Chadwick

Dating Pete Davidson
Leigh Chadwick
$5

Pete Davidson decides he wants to teach me how to play Pogs. We sit across from each other on the living room floor, and he hands me what he calls a slammer. I hold it in my open palm. It’s heavy and thick, I tell him.

Wait until it hits, he says.

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

Leigh Chadwick is the author of Your Favorite Poet (Malarkey Books, 2022), the collaborative poetry collection Too Much Tongue (Autofocus, 2022), co-written with Adrienne Marie Barrios, and Sophomore Slump (Malarkey Books, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in Hobart, Salamander, Passages North, and The Indianapolis Review, among others. She can be found online at www.leighchadwick.com and on Twitter at @LeighChadwick5.

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

rob mclennan talks above/ground press at Amanda Earl's The Small Machine Talks

Amanda Earl was good enough to interview me for episode 93 of her podcast The Small Machine Talks on all things above/ground, including this year's twenty-ninth anniversary! Thanks so much! You can hear our conversation here. As she includes in her outro:

above/ground press is a gargantuan effort that has been a mainstay for not just the Ottawa literary community but the Canadian and North American communities too. It has been such a presence for so long that it is easy to take the work that rob does for granted. rob mclennan is a diligent and faithful servant to literature. As the sole editor for the press, he manages to publish a big batch of chapbooks every year, along with all the other work he does. The catalogue is full of eclectic work from emerging and established writers. I have learned of many writers that have ended up being great influences of my own writing, such as Robert Kroetsch, Dennis Cooley, Amy Dennis, and more. Companion interview series add additional engagement with writers and small press publishers. rob mclennan is a great contributor to literature as a writer and publisher. I simply can’t imagine my own writing life being as invigorating and informed if he didn’t do what he does.

Thank you to rob for being on the show, to Jennifer Pederson for the intro and outro, to Charles Earl for processing and to you for listening to and sharing the episodes each month.

some author activity: Pirie, Harvey, Boyle + Blouin,

Pearl Pirie has a poem in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Mikko Harvey "Recommends" via Poets & Writers; Frances Boyle has a new poem up at JMWW; and Michael Blouin is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews.

some author activity: Pirie, Moseman, Dolman, Earl, Radmore, mclennan, Boyle + Mody,

Pearl Pirie has been posting a slew of interviews lately, including Lori Anderson Moseman, Anita Dolman, Amanda Earl, Claudia Coutu Radmore and rob mclennan; Frances Boyle has a new poem up at Rust & Moth, and another at After poetry; and did you know that Monica Mody has an email newsletter of personal and creative updates worth following?

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

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

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Sarah Mangold

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Greg Bem
Julia Bloch
Malcolm Curtis
Susana Gardner
Carrie Hunter
Genevieve Kaplan
rob mclennan
Lori Anderson Moseman
Denise Newman
Joanna Piechura
Meredith Stricker
Mark Tardi

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 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)

Sarah Mangold has published five chapbooks with above/ground press: Cupcake Royale (2012), Parlor (2012), A Copyist, an Astronomer, and a Calendar Expert (2016), BIRDS I RECALL (2018) and Cupcake Royale (second edition, 2018). She also edited G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #6 (September 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 robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Pirie, Hall, Chernoff + Robertson,

Pearl Pirie interviews Phil Hall; MLA Chernoff has new work in long con magazine; and three recent Lisa Robertson titles are reviewed by Andrea Brady in the London Review of Books.

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

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

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Gregory Betts

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Gary Barwin
Derek Beaulieu
Kimberly Campanello
Adam Dickinson
Kit Dobson
Arnold McBay
rob mclennan
Paul Perry
Julia Polyck-O’Neill
Aaron Tucker
Lyndsay Wilson

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 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)

Gregory Betts has published six chapbooks with above/ground press: The Cult of David Thompson (2005), The Curse of Canada (2008), Who Let the Mice in Brion Gysin (2014), Signs of Our Discontent (with Arnold McBay, 2018), For a Poetry of Blot (2019) and TWETWE: an alt-text pandemoir (2021). He also appeared in the four poet anthology READ YORK (2004).

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 robmclennan.blogspot.com

a pop-up poetry book launch: Stephen Brockwell + rob mclennan / Aug 20, 2022

Saturday, August 20, 2022: Das Lokal, 190 Dalhousie Street
2-4pm, in the (patio) tent 

launching:

Immune To The Sacred
Stephen Brockwell
Mansfield Press 

read a review of the book by rob mclennan at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics

the book of smaller
rob mclennan
University of Calgary Press 

read a review of the book by Kim Fahner, Margo LaPierre, and Jérôme Melançon at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics

books will be sold directly by the authors

Stephen Brockwell is a Montreal poet living in Ottawa. His sixth book, All of Us Reticent, Here, Together (Mansfield Press, 2016) won the Archibald Lampman Award for poetry. Stephen is a director of the Tree Reading Series, one of Canada’s oldest poetry series, with Avonlea Fotheringham and Brandon Wint. After thirty years in IT, Stephen now works for Esri, the Environmental Systems Research Institute. Stephen has participated in the Engineering Change Lab process for transforming engineering practice toward sustainable infrastructure and communities.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour in March, 2016. A suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022), appears sometime this fall, featuring a delightful cover photo by Stephen Brockwell. In spring 2020, he won ‘best pandemic beard’ from Coach House Books via Twitter, of which he is extremely proud (and mentions constantly). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

 

some author activity: Logan, Niespodziany, Pirie + Bell,

Nate Logan has a new poem up at The Indianapolis Review; Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at Hex Literary; Pearl Pirie has a haiku included as part of David McMurray's online ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK at The Asahi Shimbun; and Wade Bell has some new fiction up at The Typescript.