happy holiday things, from your friends at above/ground press

 

some author activity: hastain, Cook, Olsen + Mohammadi,

j/j hastain and Juliet Cook have a new collaboration up at Berfrois; Geoffrey Olsen has new work in the debut volume of Works & Days; and Khashayar Mohammadi has some new work up at the Ex-Puritan.

new from above/ground press: from RUBY WOUNDS, by Artie Gold & George Bowering

from RUBY WOUNDS
Artie Gold & George Bowering
$5

                 AG: The Naked Prose of my Heart

 

I can show you  that  10 /  is  15, and this is not my paradox. Distributed like the naked vernacular that composes cities, I am asleep with the sense of being awake. Now /  there is contra- diction.  Now  /  perhaps the middle skin examined. And light. Light is accident. Mowers in a field. Mechanical decomposers. I am reduced physically; therefore, these must be my simpler elements. O take me to reduced consciousness. Wrap my dry skin in hot Vic Tanny oblivion. To get away is neither to live nor to die, but to be comfortable. It's only when I add a third ball, then I am the juggler. This  /  is the prose of my equally naked disposition. Which, curdling itself last week or so, and lifting,  /  only revealed itself. Beneath one thing are small pieces of that thing, gnostic and absurdly available to Parmedines. Beneath scepticism, you want to say, is doubt, but  /  how do you know? Whoever claims against you is in possession of fenced goods and throws the towel in––but the absurdity of the situation––well, son, I would like to be able to claim you as a non-dependent  (said my father  /  like the caterpillar in Alice­­­­––but you exist . . . you are a fact!

 

 

                 GB: My Heart's Naked Prose

 

Morality is no one's business. But perhaps we all have need of it. I can show you that 10 is 15, and this is not my paradox. It belongs to poetry and therefore not my heart. I am asleep and dreaming of being awake, though dreams are told as if they were prose, so people who have to hear are bored. Even Freud suspected that dreams were boring, even though he thought poets were people who never grew up. Freud pounded his fist and Asked H.D. what the hell women wanted when he should have remembered that she was a very tall poet. Lying down on a couch nearby, now could one not become bored? Not to get away is neither to live nor to die, but only to be comfortable. If I had been Sigmund Freud I would have had my analysands stand up for fifty minutes. H.D. mentioned that Freud had miniature statues all over his office. I have only a few, including a little Parmenides I received from a famous grown up poet. Ever since it came to me it has existed, and I talk to it when I have a thought to. I tell it that 10 is 15 and it speaks into my hearing aids: "If you speak of something it must be." I believe that he was telling me something about my poor injured heart's ordinary prose.

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

In Spring of 2023 NeWest Press will publish George Bowering’s anthology of English language poets from Wyatt to Avison, with one-page essays on each of the poets, Good Morning Poems.

Montreal poet Artie Gold (1947-2007) published numerous books throughout the 1970s. His selected poems, The Beautiful Chemical Waltz (1992), appeared with an introduction by George Bowering. Talonbooks published The Collected Books of Artie Gold in 2010.

This is George Bowering’s sixth above/ground press title, 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), That Toddlin’ Town / Baby, don’ ya wanna go? (2016) and Hotels (2021).

Artie Gold’s above/ground press chapbook, THE HOTEL VICTORIA POEMS, appeared in 2003.

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: fitzpatrick, Johnson, Pirie, Boyle, Turnbull + Hogg,

TIA House presents a podcast conversation between ryan fitzpatrick and Nikki Reimer; Chris Johnson has a new piece up at Shrapnel magazine; Pearl Pirie conducts a mini-interview with Frances Boyle; Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Chris Turnbull are collaboratively interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Matthew Friedman writes a small piece remembering Robert Hogg.

Emily Breitkopf reviews Leigh Chadwick's Dating Pete Davidson (2022) in The Ampersand Review

Emily Breitkopf was good enough to provide the first review of Leigh Chadwick's Dating Pete Davidson (2022) in The Ampersand Review. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

LEIGH CHADWICK, DATING PETE DAVIDSON.
OTTAWA: ABOVE/GROUND PRESS, 2022

Leigh Chadwick’s chapbook Dating Pete Davidson published by above/ground press is such a refreshing and fun read. Every single page had me grinning from ear to ear and giggling to myself at the sheer concept of this chapbook. For anyone who might not know who Pete Davidson is, I highly recommend looking into it in order to properly appreciate this collection. All the small call-outs to Davidson’s dating history, especially his recent breakup with Kim Kardashian, and other people he has had a run-in with like Kanye West, were what made this chapbook so hilarious. It felt like an inside scoop to this fake relationship Chadwick has built just for this piece with such great comedic tones. I found myself rooting for Chadwick and Davidson and hoping that Pete Davidson would finally have a relationship that sticks. Dating Pete Davidson is a comedic masterpiece from front cover all the way to the acknowledgements. If you have even the slightest clue who Pete Davidson is you’re going to want to read this. And if you don’t know who Pete Davidson is, you’re going to want to find out just so you can read Leigh Chadwick’s chapbook.

Scott Bryson reviews MLA Chernoff's SCRIED FUNDAMENTS (2022) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of MLA Chernoff's SCRIED FUNDAMENTS (2022) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

Chapbook, MLA Chernoff, 20 pgs, above/ground press, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $5

The poems in this collection defy conclusive interpretation, but they appear to record a reality that’s now very familiar to most of us: life in lockdown, trapped at home, adrift in thought.

As the “SCRIED” of the title suggests (future-telling via reflective surface), we get a distorted view of this narrative. It’s bent by the crystal ball we’re peering into as much as by the off-kilter discourse of the person who’s speaking. There are enough instances of “our,” “we” and allusions to sex in these poems to suggest that someone is there with Chernoff (assuming Chernoff is the speaking “I”), though we don’t hear from or about this other — only of their shared role in these circumstances.

Chernoff’s mood is somehow both manic and dour, sometimes feverish: “six long months of constant clickery… Every day rides the mucus of a snail… every night is Friday night and Monday / morning put together, burnt out and without end.” Compound words are regularly invented (“hornyscared,” “givingspread”) and a complex vocabulary is employed — you’ll find plenty of obscure terms to look up. A lone snippet of text is repeated here, in the first poem and the last: “I gotta make a decision / leave tonight or live and die this way.” It’s the plainest bit of speech Chernoff uses — a recurring moment of lucidity that never resolves.

SCRIED FUNDAMENTS is attention-grabbing, clever and regularly baffling. It’s sometimes recognizable and sometimes foreign, and though it often seems impossible to decipher, there’s never a dull moment.

the joyous return of The Peter F. Yacht Club regatta/reading/christmas party!

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan;
The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

with readings from yacht club regulars and irregulars alike, including Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, AJ Dolman, Margo LaPierre, rob mclennan, James Moran, Stuart Ross, D.S. Stymeist and Grant Wilkins (and possibly others,

and might there be a new issue as part of the event? (i haven't decided yet, honestly); but remember the virtual issue we did last year?

new from above/ground press: Teeth, by Douglas Glover

Teeth
Douglas Glover
$5

I went to see Hackenfeller, my dentist, on Thursday, not to see Hackenfeller himself, although I have nothing against him — he has been my dentist for half-a-dozen years without incident — but to have my teeth cleaned by Clara, his dental hygienist, a large, voluptuous, melancholy, white-blond woman of thirty-four whose husband left her eight months ago after an undiagnosed case of Lyme disease developed into an auto-immune disorder that causes her debilitating pain — she told me that at night, when she tries to sleep, it is as if her blood had turned to acid. She can barely keep her job as a dental hygienist let alone have a relationship with a man or any kind of social life and thinks constantly of suicide, has daily suicidal thoughts even when the pain abates and she can dream of happiness again. Of course, Hackenfeller won't dismiss her because of what happened that one time when his marriage was on the rocks, despite her inability to work regular hours, her tendency to leave the chair in the midst of a gum examination, her brown studies, and general inattentiveness (patients have complained) and her habit of turning normal dental hygienist chit-chat into a litany of existential woes and complaints, all in code, of course, nothing overt, when she says "my cat Nigel," she means her husband Brad, as in "My cat Nigel was overly sensitive to my condition, and when the pains became unbearable, he fled one night after I inadvertently left the back door open taking the trash out."

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

Douglas Glover is the author of five story collections, four novels, four books of literary nonfiction. In 2007, he was given the Writers’ Trust of Canada Timothy Findley Award for an author in mid-career. His novel Elle won the 2003 Governor-General’s Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Elle was adapted for the stage by the actress Severn Thompson and premiered at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille in 2016. Glover’s story collection A Guide to Animal Behaviour was a finalist for the 1991 Governor-General’s Award. His stories have been frequently anthologized, notably in The Best American Short Stories, Best Canadian Stories, and The New Oxford Book of Canadian Stories. He was the subject of a TV documentary in a series called The Writing Life and a collection of critical essays, The Art of Desire, The Fiction of Douglas Glover, edited by Bruce Stone. Glover was the publisher and editor of the monthly magazine Numéro Cinq from 2010 to 2017.  He edited the annual Best Canadian Stories from 1996 to 2006. His most recent book was The Erotics of Restraint: Essays on Literary Form (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

Helen Hajnoczky is on the 2022 shortlist for The Nelson Ball Prize!

Calgary poet Helen Hajnoczky is on the 2022 shortlist for The Nelson Ball Prize for her chapbook a grain of sand! Huzzah! And congrats to everyone else on the shortlist, including three other above/ground press authors! And a reminder, naturally, that copies of the recent festschrift celebrating her work, Report from the Hajnoczky Society Vol. 1 No. 1 are still very much available.

some author activity: Mangold, Saklikar, Hogg + mclennan,

Sarah Mangold has new work up at 128 Lit; Renée Sarojini Saklikar has a poem up in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; and Robert Hogg has a poem up at Pamenar Press; and did I mention I now have a substack that focuses on in-progress prose?

Robert Hogg (March 26, 1942 – November 13, 2022)

Stephen Brockwell and Robert Hogg at a Chaudiere Books launch, 2015

Mountain, Ontario poet, editor and mentor Robert Hogg (see my obituary for him here) has died. He was the author of, among other titles, three above/ground press chapbooks: from Lamentations (2012), from Lamentations (second (expanded) edition, 2016) and From Each Forthcoming (2021). The volume Report from the Hogg Society, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2022) landed in just enough time for him to see and respond to a digital copy. A retired Carleton University Professor and organic farmer, he was friend and mentor to generations of poets, both within and beyond the boundaries of his classroom. He will be dearly missed.

Clare Latremouille (July 4, 1964 – November 16, 2022)

above/ground press and Chaudiere Books author Clare Latremouille (see my obituary for her here) has died, after an extended illness. A founding member of The Peter F Yacht Club writers group, she had work in the July 1993 FREE VERSE ANTHOLOGY (one of above/ground press' first publications), as well as the first issue of STANZAS magazine (1993), Missing Jacket #4 (1996) and The Peter F. Yacht Club #1 (2003) and #8 (2007) as well as more than half a dozen above/ground press broadsides across the 1990s. Her chapbook, I will write a poem for you. Now: appeared in 1995, which was reprinted in the anthology Groundswell: best of above/ground press, 1993-2003, edited by rob mclennan (Fredericton NB: cauldron books/Broken Jaw Press, 2003). Her novel, The Desmond Road Book of the Dead appeared with Chaudiere Books in 2006. She will be missed in this town by many.

Report from the Society : half-price sale!

I've published a baker's dozen of these "Report from the Society" poet-festschrifts this year via above/ground press (Stuart Ross, Stephen Brockwell, Elizabeth Robinson, Pattie McCarthy, Sarah Mangold, Amanda Earl, Cameron Anstee, Gregory Betts, Robert Hogg, Helen Hajnoczky, Monty Reid, Kate Siklosi and Phil Hall), and want to keep making them, so maybe I should offer them for half-price (same shipping etc) until the end of December? Each volume is a mixture of new and previously published, critical pieces and poems-in-response, with maybe a previously-published interview or two, each volume prepared as a celebration of the literary work of each particular subject (and, to make it more fun, none of the subjects have been aware these are being built until copies of the final publication land on their doorstep). I'm currently working on a further six volumes; who could they be?

Volumes of these, also, are part of the above/ground press annual subscriptions (have you considered subscribing for 2023, the press' thirtieth year?).

Normally $7 each (the Siklosi title is in two separate volumes, fyi); each individual title will be $3.50; if you order more than three titles, check with me for potential postage costs.

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

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

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

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

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Robert Hogg

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Cameron Anstee
Jennifer Baker
Gary Barwin
Michael Blouin
George Bowering
Stephen Collis
David Epstein
Lionel Kearns
Rob Manery
Daphne Marlatt
rob mclennan
Renee Rodin
Aaron Tucker
Chris Turnbull
Andy Weaver
Thomas Whyte
Grant Wilkins

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 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)

Robert Hogg has published three chapbooks with above/ground press: from Lamentations (2012), from Lamentations (second edition) (2016) and From Each Forthcoming (2021). He also appeared online in The Peter F Yacht Club #30 : the virtual issue (December 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 robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: fitzpatrick, Robertson, mclennan, O'Reilly, Hogg + Novak,

ryan fitzpatrick is interviewed on MODL Press (2000-2009); Lisa Robertson has a twitter-thread reposted on Kathryn Mockler's send my love to anyone; rob mclennan has a new poem, and is interviewed over at the Artisanal Writer; Nathanael O'Reilly has some new work up at The Loch Raven Review; Robert Hogg has a new poem up at The Typescript; and JoAnna Novak writes on Taylor Swift and Joe Brainard over at The Paris Review.

new from above/ground press: G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #24 : guest-edited by Sara Lefsyk

NOW AVAILABLE: G U E S T #24
edited by Sara Lefsyk

see here for Sara Lefsyk’s introduction and biography

the new issue features new work by: 

Danika Stegeman LeMay
Issam Zineh
Tamara J. Madison
Douglas Piccinnini
Joanna Penn Cooper
Alexandre Ferrere
Archana Sridhar
Isaac Harris
[sarah] Cavar
David Agyei-Yeboah
Todd Colby 

$5 + postage / + $1 for Canadian orders; + $2 for US; + $6 outside of North America

Canadian/American/International rates (including shipping

Canadian orders $6.00 CAD American orders $7.00 CAD International orders $11.00 CAD

Author biographies: 

David Agyei–Yeboah is a young creative from Accra, Ghana that loves to create. His prose-poems, hybrids and verse poems are published/forthcoming on Ta Adesa, Tampered Press, Contemporary Ghanaian Writers Series (CGWS), The Kalahari Review, African Writer magazine, Journal of the Writers Project of Ghana (JWPG), Icefloe Press, Ethel Journal of Writing and Art, Praxis Magazine for Arts and Literature & elsewhere. An alumnus of the Tampered Press poetry workshop facilitated by Ladan Osman and Koleka Putuma, he was longlisted for the Totally Free Best of the Bottom Drawer Global Writing Prize 2021. His work explores the trauma and angst of marginalized characters as he believes empathy is a lost art. Through presenting authentic narratives that readers can engage with, he projects a world of communion, hope and positivity. Also a singer and songwriter, he croons about the complexities of romantic love and the nuances of trauma. He tweets @david_shaddai and posts mini covers on Instagram @davidshaddai.

[ɥɐɹɐs] Cavar is a PhD student, writer, and transgender-about-town, and serves as managing editor at Stone of Madness Press and founding editor at swallow::tale press. Author of two chapbooks, A HOLE WALKED IN (Sword & Kettle Press) and THE DREAM JOURNALS (giallo lit), they have also had work in Electric Literature, The Offing, Bitch Magazine, and elsewhere. Cavar navel-gazes at cavar.club and tweets @cavarsarah.

Todd Colby is an artist and poet. His writing and art have recently appeared in Iterant Magazine, The Believer, Bomb Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Denver Quarterly, Dizzy Magazine, Hyperallergic, and Poetry Magazine. He is the author of six books of poetry, his most recent book, Splash State, was published by The Song Cave.

Joanna Penn Cooper is the author of The Itinerant Girl's Guide to Self-Hypnosis (Brooklyn Arts Press), What Is a Domicile (Noctuary Press), and Crown (Ravenna Press), as well as several chapbooks. Joanna’s recent chapbooks are When We Were Fearsome and Wild Apples: A Flash Memoir Collection with Writing Prompts, both from Ethel. She is currently working on a full-length collection of flash memoir pieces dealing with motherhood, origins, and power, tentatively titled A Wilderness of Her Own. She lives in Durham, NC. She teaches writing classes and provides editorial and coaching support to writers through her business Muse Writing & Creative Support.

Alexandre Ferrere is 32 and lives in Cherbourg, France. After a Master’s degree in Library Sciences and a Master’s degree in Anglophone Literature, he is now working on a Ph.D. on American poetry and little magazines. His fictions, interviews, essays and poems appeared in dozens of journals online and in print. He is editor at Trio House Press and for The Banyan Review, and has published two poetry chapbooks: mono / stitches, designed and handmade by artist Sara Lefsyk (Ethel, 2020) and Mechanical Ode to a Snake (Between the Highway Press, 2022).

Isaac Harris issa Black queer currently based in Glasgow, Scotland. Occasionally attractive n always dysphoric dey make stories bout Negro livin!! Previous work can be found in the fantastic and ever lovely @daughterhoodziner in Instagram.

Danika Stegeman LeMay’s work has appeared in 32 Poems, Afternoon Visitor, APARTMENT, Blue Arrangements, CLOAK, Concision, Leavings, The Woodward Review and Word for/ Word, among other places, and is forthcoming in Ethel Zine. Her video poem, “Then Betelgeuse Reappears” was an official selection for the 2021 Midwest Video Poetry Festival. Danika’s debut collection of poems, Pilot (2020), was published by Spork Press. Her website is danikastegemanlemay.com.

Poet, writer, editor, Tamara J. Madison, is the author of Threed, This Road Not Damascus (Trio House Press); Kentucky Curdled and Sistuh’s Sermon on the Mount (all poetry), and Collard County (fiction). Her writing is inspired by her ancestry and relations. She is the creator and host of BREAKDOWN: The Poet & The Poems, a YouTube poetry conversation series, promoting poets and their poetry as inspiration for everyday life. She is an MFA graduate of New England College and an Anaphora Arts Fellow (2021). She currently teaches English and Creative Writing at Valencia College in Central Florida.

Douglas Piccinnini’s work has appeared or will soon appear with American Poetry Review, Brooklyn Rail, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Dream Pop, Dreginald, Fence, Hot Pink, Lana Turner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prelude, and Volt.

Recently, he is the author of the chapbooks, The Grave Itself (Ethel, 2021), A Western Sky (Greying Ghost, 2022) and previously, two full-length collections: Blood Oboe (Omnidawn, 2015) and Story Book: a novella (The Cultural Society, 2015).

Archana Sridhar is a South Asian poet and university administrator living in Toronto, Canada. Archana focuses on themes of meditation, race, motherhood, and diaspora in her poetry and flash writing. Her work has been featured in The Puritan, The Hellebore, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Renderings is available through 845 Press, and her chapbook Our Initials Were U.S.A. is available through Ethel micro-press. Archana’s writing can be found at www.archanasridhar.com.

Issam Zineh is the author of the poetry collection Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022) and the chapbook The Moment of Greatest Alienation (Ethel, 2021). His work appears in AGNI, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Tahoma Literary Review, The Rumpus and elsewhere. Find him at www.issamzineh.com.