some author activity: Hawes, Ace, Williams, Coulton, Myers, Schapira + Bell,

James Hawes has a new poem up on the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, as does Samuel Ace and forthcoming author Evan Williams, as well as Valerie Coulton; forthcoming author Peter Myers has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series via dusie; Kate Schapira has new work in Anomaly; and Wade Bell has new work up at The Typescript.

new from above/ground press: What started / this mess, by Samuel Ace

What started / this mess
Samuel Ace
$5

March 22

What dawn   
what midday   
what dusk
what mid-
length coat   
what midnight   
what midship
sails out
what gone
as the sun
hits 40 degrees   
between knee
and hip   
the midline
of my life   
what mid-senility
would bring
the next word   
what mid-talk
would actually stop   
what mid-breath
would I breathe again    
what simple garden
of peas
what mid-stride
looks back
over the cliff    
falling up then
standing at
the peak   
before the dark
bends toward
the morning light   
what current
takes us
over the tracks   
what desert calls
to what rust
unvisited since
midlife   
what’s left behind   
what stinking light   
what gathering half-
filled with things   
a yellow couch   
half-eaten jars
of honey   
half-read books   
half-smelled bees
in the magnolia trees   
the half-full reservoir
left to fill again    
what remains
in the rain   
half hopeful   
half a creosote bush   
half pray daylight
comes half-life
into dust       

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Samuel Ace is a trans/genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author of several books, most recently Our Weather Our Sea and a chapbook of the same name; Meet Me There, Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash., and Stealth with poet Maureen Seaton. Other chapbooks include Madame Curie’s Notebook, The Road to the Multiverse, A minor history / of secret knowledge (all with Maureen Seaton). Ace is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writer Award and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry, as well as a repeat finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the National Poetry Series. Recent work can be found in Poetry, We Want it All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetry; Home is Where You Queer Your Heart, PEN America, Best American Experimental Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies.

A book-length poetic essay, I Want to Start by Saying, is forthcoming from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center.

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: BIRD SNOW ON HARD TRACKS, by Stuart Ross

BIRD SNOW ON HARD TRACKS
Stuart Ross
$5

A yellow ice bird will soon turn
the red night mist into feathered mice

Grey days chatter and chirp among the falling rocks
A flurry of silence buttons the gently flowing air

The naked tree among cold January crickets
brings a yellow yellow yellow horizon

to the dead railway bridge beneath
a trace of blackened caterpillars

Author’s Note: This poem was assembled using all the words from Nelson Ball’s quietly magnificent collection Bird Tracks On Hard Snow, including dedications and titles. I took liberties in capitalizing and lowercasing words. And in using spaces mid-line in place of a period; Nelson did that only in a few early poems. Dashes are the only punctuation I brought from that book to this poem. Nelson got to see the first half (more or less) of this poem before his death in August 2019. He seemed amused in his quiet way by this remix. —SR

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover drawing: Barbara Caruso

Stuart Ross is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and small press guerrilla living in Cobourg, Ontario. The recipient of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize and the 2010 Relit Prize for Short Fiction, among others, Stuart is the author of over twenty books of poetry, fiction, and essays, most recently The Book of Grief and Hamburgers (ECW Press, 2022) and 70 Kippers: The Dagmar Poems (with Michael Dennis; Proper Tales Press, 2020). I Am Claude François and You Are a Bathtub, his third fiction collection, appeared from Anvil Press in fall 2022. Stuart has taught workshops in schools across the country and was Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University and the University of Ottawa. His work has been translated into French, Norwegian, Slovene, Russian, Spanish, and Estonian. He occasionally blogs at bloggamooga.blogspot.ca.

This is Ross’ third chapbook with above/ground press, after ESPESANTES (2018) and NINETY TINY POEMS (2019).

Report from the Ross Society (ed. rob mclennan), an assemblage of writing in response to the work of Stuart Ross (above/ground press) appeared in 2022.

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: Lewin, McElroy, Cooley, Press, Nećakov + Earl,

Vivian Lewin has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, as does Gil McElroy, and Dennis Cooley, and K.I. Press; Lillian Nećakov has a piece in the "one good memory" series, via Silver Birch Press; and Amanda Earl has a new poem in the "poetry pause" series for National Poetry Month via The League of Canadian Poets.

new from above/ground press: Apogee/Perigee, by Leesa Dean

Apogee/Perigee
Leesa Dean
$5

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

design by Nathan Vyklicky

Leesa Dean is a graduate of the University of Guleph’s Creative Writing MFA program and an instructor at Selkirk College. Her first book, Waiting for the Cyclone, was a finalist for the 2017 Trillium and Relit Awards. Her novella-in-verse, The Filling Station, was recently published by Gaspereau Press and is based on the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. She lives in Krestova, BC (unceded Sinixt territory), with her artist husband Matty Kakes and their daughter Scarlett Heart.

This is Dean’s second above/ground press chapbook, after The Desert of Itabira (2020)

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: Robinson, Shea, Trivedi, Hyland, Greenstreet, Nilson, Gray, Iijima, Young + Martin,

Elizabeth Robinson, Michael Martin Shea, Amish Trivedi, MC Hyland, Kate Greenstreet and others all have new work in TYPO 34; Geoffrey Nilson, Stephanie Gray (a poem for Brenda Iijima) and Geoffrey Young each have new poems up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month; and Camille Martin has been working on a number of collages lately, over at her blog.

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

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

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Nikki Reimer

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
Jonathan Ball
andrea bennett
Jason Christie
Ryan J. Cox
Jen Currin
Dina Del Bucchia
ryan fitzpatrick
Kyle Flemmer
Elee Kraljii Gardiner
Emma Healey
Nicole Markotić
Carmen Faye Mathes
rob mclennan
Adam Seelig
Kevin Spenst
Jeremy Stewart
Jonathan Valelly
Daniel Zomparelli

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
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)

Nikki Reimer (she/her/they/them) is a self-proclaimed “carbon-based life form of Ukrainian and Russian Mennonite descent who lives on the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta. She may or may not be undead. She writes poetry, essays and criticism, yells on the internet, and makes digital art.” They are the author of three books of poetry and multiple essays on grief. GRIEFWAVE, a multimedia, web-based, extended elegy, was published in February 2022. Her next collection, out this fall, is No Town Called We (Talon Books, 2023).

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: mclennan, Barton, Deutch, Bolster, Boyle + Niespodziany,

rob mclennan has a new(ish) poem up on his blog; John Barton has a poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Amanda Deutch, and so does Stephanie Bolster; Frances Boyle has new work up at Dust Poetry Magazine; and Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at HAD, as well as The Boiler.

some author activity: Scroggins, Norris, Carisse, Hawes, Tracy, Mohammadi + Cadsby,

Mark Scroggins has a new poem up at talking about strawberries all of the time; Ken Norris is interviewed there, as is Russell Carisse, and so is James Hawes; Dale Tracy is interviewed in the '12 or 20 questions' series; Khashayar Mohammadi has a poem up on the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, and so does forthcoming author Heather Cadsby!

some author activity: Earl, Houbolt + Melançon,

Amanda Earl features at David O'Meara's Plan 99 Reading Series in Ottawa, alongside Gillian Sze and Adam Sol on Saturday, April 15, 2023; forthcoming author Kyla Houbolt has a new piece up at Sublunary Review, and another in IDLE INK; and Jérôme Melançon has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog to open this year's National Poetry Month.