new from above/ground press: Fifty-Two Lines About Henry, by Cary Fagan

Fifty-Two Lines About Henry
Cary Fagan
$5

He felt vaguely guilty that blue was no longer his favourite colour.




He should never have bragged about loving the scariest horror movies but now there was nothing he could do about it.




Yes, he would write a sequel to Crime and Punishment.




Hello? He said, hello, hello, hello, hello?

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cary Fagan’s first chapbook was published in an edition of six copies, all typed by him. Some forty years later he is a co-editor of the chapbook house, espresso. He also publishes books for adults and kids, most recently The Animals (Book*Hug). He lives in Toronto.

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: The Pig’s Valise, by BLUNT RESEARCH GROUP

The Pig’s Valise
BLUNT RESEARCH GROUP
$5

                                       Facing home
                                                      on and off
                                snatching a little rest
                                      before the owner gets back
                                      we see the other creatures
                   pigs and goats
                          do any of us really think
                          we’ll be turned back into sailors?

           The animal forehead
                     draped with coins
                     untrue that we know

                                          no need to know

                                                  NEVER BE THE SAILOR.

              Had something been forgotten
                                                an adjustment a turn
                                           a final step?

                               Wires crackle
                                       discharged on a word
                                    wrongly subsisting
                               the beautiful parts of the dance                 
                                                             signaled from below

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

BLUNT RESEARCH GROUP (BRG) is an anonymous collective of poets, artists, and scholars from diverse backgrounds. Its poems and essays have been published in journals such as Chicago Review, Gulf Coast, and Fence, and in books and pamphlets from Noemi Press (Lost Privilege Company, 2016) and in the Poetry Series of Wesleyan University Press (The Work-Shy, 2016, 2018)--a volume selected by Stephanie Burt in the Yale Review as one of the “Best First Books of Poetry” of 2016. Writing by BRG has also been adapted for theater production by Asher Hartman and incorporated into “States of Incarceration,” a show which traveled to museums in seventeen states in the U.S. between 2016 and 2019. Mike Davis has described the poetry of The Work-Shy as “an archaeology of humanity that should haunt us forever.”

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: MacEachern, mclennan, Archer, Heroux + Barwin,

Jessi MacEachern, nina jane drystek, rob mclennan and Sacha Archer (among others) all have work in the final issue of Carousel, which also includes an interview between Jason Heroux and Jerrod Edson; and Gary Barwin is on the inaugural League of Canadian Poets Spoken Word Award shortlist.

new from above/ground press: A Crown of Omnivorous Teeth: poems in honour of Chris Johnson and raccoons in general, ed. Dessa Bayrock

A Crown of Omnivorous Teeth
poems in honour of Chris Johnson and raccoons in general
edied by Dessa Bayrock
$5

with contributions by:

Cameron Anstee
Manahil Bandukwala
Dessa Bayrock
Joshua Chris Bouchard
Liam Burke
Jake Byrne
Conyer Clayton
Ellen Chang-Richardson
AJ Dolman
nina jane drystek
Amanda Earl
Margo LaPierre
rob mclennan
James K. Moran
Emilia Morgan
David O'Meara
Pearl Pirie
and
Monty Reid


There aren’t any proverbs about raccoons that I know of. But there should be. Here’s one, to start: where you see one raccoon, there are five more standing behind it.

Where you see one raccoon, there are ten more standing behind it.

Where you see one raccoon, there are surely eighteen more standing behind it.

This volume collects eighteen such raccoons — or, at least, impressions of raccoons. The thing these impressions have in common is the raccoon standing in the light, held endearingly by nineteen other beady eyes wedged into faces still firmly in the shadows. The raccoon standing in the light is, of course, Chris Johnson. (Editor’s Foreword, Dessa Bayrock)

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Dessa Bayrock lives in Ottawa with two cats, one of whom is very loud and almost always nearby. She ran post ghost press for two years and has published three chapbooks: IS IT ABOUT RUINS AND GHOSTS?, The Trick to Feeling Safe at Home, and Worry & Fuck. She recently completed a doctorate about Canadian literary awards. You can find her, or at least more about her, at dessaybayrock.com, or at @dessayo on Instagram.

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: Barwin, Robertson, Armantrout + Houbolt,

Gary Barwin is interviewed by Ali Hassan for CBC's The Next Chapter; Lisa Robertson and Kate Briggs are in conversation online at Granta; Rae Armantrout has two poems online at London Review of Books; and Kyla Houbolt is interviewed over at The Broken Spine

new from above/ground press: MY STRUGGLE WITH NOUNS, by Gary Barwin

MY STRUGGLE WITH NOUNS
Gary Barwin
$5

womb-of-hearse
smells in stereo
 
indeed the inexpressible
might not be a potato

I knew they would punish me

time is reversed
would that mean I’m terrible or
the seabird's blueberry mouth?
 
the poet says when we age
a pig waits by the door

songs have lost their birds
leaves falling from forgotten trees

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of many books including Duck Eats Yeast, Quacks, Explodes; Man Loses Eye (with Lillian Nećakov; 2023) and Imagining Imagining: Essays on Language, Identity and Infinity (Wolsak & Wynn, 2023). Some of his multimedia works can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@garybarwin and audio work at https://garybarwin.bandcamp.com. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. garybarwin.com

This is Barwins’s eighth above/ground press chapbook, after “SYNONYMS FOR FISH,” STANZAS #26 (March, 2001), Seedpod, Microfiche (2013) and Dust of the Wren: poems and translations (2019), and the collaborative PLEASURE BRISTLES (with Alice Burdick; 2018), gravitynipplemilk anthroposcenesters (with Tom Prime; 2018) and SOME LEAVES (with rob mclennan, 2020), and SAYING “BOY” IN A WILDERNESS OF SONG (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

The Factory Reading Series, January 23: Amanda Earl, Mia Morgan + Chris Johnson,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:

readings by:

Amanda Earl (Ottawa)
Mia Morgan (Ottawa)
+
Chris Johnson (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Doors 7pm / Reading 730pm
Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry
837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,

Amanda Earl's latest book is Beast Body Epic. Her chapbook, the Seasons, an excerpt from Welcome to Upper Zygonia comes out this winter from Full House Literary. Earl is now offering an editing service. Ask her for more info.

Emilia Morgan is a Palestinian editor, writer, and small-press publisher. Their work appears in various places, including talking about strawberries all of the time, chaudiere books, and Train: a poetry journal. Emilia is the editorial half of Coven Editions poetry press and holds an MA in Literature and Film.

Chris Johnson [photo credit: Curtis Perry] was born in Scarborough, ON, and currently lives on unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. He is the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine, a board member at the Ottawa Arts Council, a member of the selection committee for Bywords.ca, and a member of the creative collective VII. Chris' latest chapbook is 320 lines of poetry (counting blank lines) (Anstruther Press, 2023).

some author activity: drystek, Eleftherion, Niespodziany + Reid,

nina jane drystek has new work up at The Hellebore; Melissa Eleftherion has new work up at Hot Pink Magazine; Benjamin Niespodziany lists his "30 favorite authors (and their books) that I read in 2023"; and Monty Reid has work in the new issue of Pinhole Poetry.

new from above/ground press: These Steady Bulbs, by Lydia Unsworth

These Steady Bulbs
Lydia Unsworth
$5

The poems that follow are a direct response to Ian Waite’s Middlefield: A postwar council estate in time, published by Uniform Books. The setting and timeline is transposed, the concerns and nostalgia in part abstracted.


A Field Remains

 
Perhaps you wouldn’t call it a field, but at that time it hadn’t quite morphed into anything else. It wasn’t being used, though our childhoods were skimming through it. Those open spaces were erasures, and, like us, ill-defined. Grass stretched for miles, interrupted by fences, private land, electricity boxes, containers far from any kind of workplace. Blackberries and hyacinth balsam with their Parma Violet cloth-to-nose stink. We’d slip down ginnels behind rows of houses and this space that wasn’t any longer where we lived but wasn’t yet the motorway would open out. The motorway couldn’t see us because it never was anywhere, was only ever a going, a driving-toward-death. And the adults, they didn’t disobey the signage or peek over walls designed expressly to keep them out. Nothing for them to see but their imagination, creased and left to rot. Wild fear, rumour, grey flowing capes half-seen and blinked away. We lied and camped wherever it looked soft enough. Metal bridges, leftover streams, fat wet furniture, mossy and bright. We wanted rain in our shoes, we wanted to smell damp like the soil of the planet.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Lydia Unsworth’s latest collections are Arthropod (Death of Workers) and Mortar (Osmosis). Pamphlets include Residue (above/ground), cement, terraces (Red Ceilings), and YIELD (KFS). Poems in places like Ambit, Banshee, Bath Magg, Blackbox Manifold, Oxford Poetry, PERVERSE, and Shearsman.

This is Unsworth’s third above/ground press poetry title, after I Have Not Led a Serious Life (2019) and Residue (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: Sikkema, Eleftherion, Oniță, Boyle + Berlatsky,

Michael Sikkema has some new writing up at Cream Scene Carnival; Melissa Elefttherion has new work up at The Mantle; Adriana Oniță has new work up at the ex-puritan; Frances Boyle is interviewed over at Amanda Earl's The Small Machine Talks podcast; and Noah Berlatsky has a new poem up at Synchronized Chaos.