new from above/ground press: Some Failed Eternity, by Pete Smith

Some Failed Eternity
Pete Smith
$5

PREROGATIVE

We gather under the banner of plurality & wait for
trickle down—as if we was a pyramid, I a dividend

As residual tickles pleasure down our collective
past is, we declare, an open & shut mummy

If it’s all the same to you, with your penchant
for song, we’ll take the descant & run

Kingdom come reigning down over Boswell Field—
one end of the panto horse unzipped a wicked grin

A ghazal does not give room for us to stamp
our authority, lick our prerogative, frank our maleness

We lack lustre but make up for it with
shine—always the reflection never the source

Vertigo, he said, is the only way to go. Vortex,
she said, we have the horizontal & we’re holding

One gender, solo, created an onanian agenda
kept the minutes for years but slid into as usual

We lather under the banality of plura—there’s
safety in numbers, but First Kings is torture

As one who has sired but never harboured, seeded
but not enfleshed, I’ll assume the position. Outside

At the tap-tree of osmosis we hold our breath
to be self-evident, enough for one constitution

A host of feathers in a down of Pentecost
flaming imposters burn us at every turn

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

Pete Smith lives on the unceded land of Tk’emlups te Secwepémc. He has published poems, reviews and essays in the likes of jacket (1st series), Crayon, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, Alterran Poetry Assemblage, the Fortnightly Review, Capilano Review, et al and the book Bindings with Discords, 2015, from Shearsman which collects six long sequences. He was short-listed for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, 2015, Malahat Review’s Open Seasons Award, 2017 & Arc Poem of the Year, 2023. Recent ventures into translation, from Osip Mandelstam’s poems from the winter of 1933-4, are in Snow lit rev #s 9 &10. He has three previous above/ground chapbooks & works in Touch the Donkey, periodicities & G U  E S T #23. Much gratitude to rob mclennan.

This is Pete Smith’s fourth chapbook with above/ground press, after Strum of Unseen (2008), A New Love/An Aching Stone (2016) and S i n g ... d e s p i t e (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

new from above/ground press: In The Margins. . . . . .of french translations found and remixed by russell carisse, by russell carisse

In The Margins. . . . . .of french translations found and remixed by russell carisse
russell carisse
$5

draws me toward the
“ego”
  away

without a sign
a crying out

* * *

I expel myself
motion
perhaps
it is thus
an other
which “I”
of sobs, of vomit
the
tears and
perspire
makes me balk at
father who
desires
I expel
who am only
myself

but one that
turns me inside
that “I” am
my own death

* * *

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

russell carisse is currently living on unceded Wolastoqiyik and Mig’maw territory in New Brunswick. Here they have resettled from Tkaronto into an off-grid trailer in the woods, with their family of people and animals, to grow food and practice other forms of underconsumption. russell is the author of chapbooks, BRICKWORKS (Frog Hollow Press 2021), and English Garden Bondage (above/ground press 2022). Their work can be found online and in print.

This is carisse’s second above/ground press title, after English Garden Bondage (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: Brenner, Baus, mclennan, Kaminski + Burnham,

Summer Brenner has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; some of Eric Baus' poems were translated into Czech; rob mclennan is featured via Instagram on Stephanie Austin's mugshot writers; Megan Kaminski features at Etcetera; and Clint Burnham is interviewed in the '12 or 20 questions' series.

some author activity: Babineau, Earl, fitzpatrick, Konchan, Carr, Perry, Blunt Research Group + mclennan,

Kemeny Babineau writes about the late Asphodel Books in Cleveland over at Medium; Amanda Earl, ryan fitzpatrick, Virginia Konchan, Emily Carr, Paul Perry and Blunt Research Group, among many others, have work in the winter volume of Action, Spectacle, an issue guest-edited by more than a dozen contemporary poets and editors, including rob mclennan.

new from above/ground press: BUSY SECRET, by Micah Ballard

BUSY SECRET
Micah Ballard
$5

FRANCIS FARMER

Embroidering
pranks delicate helix hand
please forgive my radiance
of new and ferocious types
this is your tomb too
the remote control is for everyone
in the sky there’s no competition
cigarettes smoke themselves
all the clouds could care less
banter is only banter
it polishes its own secrets
when the heavenly demons
come back where will you be?
Please keep next to me

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

Cover image/design: Colter Jacobsen

Micah Ballard is the author of over a dozen books of poetry including Waifs and Strays (City Lights Books), Afterlives (Bootstrap Press), The Michaux Notebook (FMSBW), Krewes (Bootstrap Press), Selected Prose, 2008-19 (Blue Press), Evangeline Downs (Ugly Duckling Presse), Daily Vigs (Bird & Beckett Books), Vesper Chimes (Gas Meter), Muddy Waters (State Champs), and Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners (Bootstrap Press). He lives in San Francisco with poet Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, their daughter Lorca, and co-edits Auguste Press and Lew Gallery Editions.

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 Old Man: new stories, by Clint Burnham

The Old Man: new stories
Clint Burnham
$5
 

1. How was the conference, I asked him by text. It was 5 in the morning my time, an hour later where he was. Pretty good. Some interesting stuff. Some eye roll stuff. The usual.

2. Her friend sent her some photographs of ikebana she had done. Their stark minimalism made her think of death - her mother had just died, it was on her mind I suppose. She looked it up and sure enough, under “ikebana” she read “A flower arrangement made to mark a death is typically constructed of white flowers, with some dead leaves and branches, arranged to express peace.” In her mind she dropped out the “is,” and thought ikebana was just about death, not one of the options.

3. She mourned her mother who had died two months earlier, a mother who moved out when she was 8 years old, and now they - she and her sister - had to, had to sort all of her stuff, she’s given them nothing but bothering in life - okay, she gave birth to us but that was a bit of a settler’s gift, she thought, a smallpox blanket. She had given them nothing in life. And now they, her sister and she, had to sort their mother’s shit. Including some actual shit, because towards the end of her life she was using Depends and there were a few in the garbage can in her room. It was a white plastic bucket made to resemble an aluminum can, with chrome clamps on either side to keep the lid on tight so smells wouldn’t leak out.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2024
as the twenty-third title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Clint Burnham teaches in Burnaby and lives in Vancouver. He was born in Comox, British Columbia, which is on the unceded traditional territory of the K’ómoks (Sahtloot) First Nation, centred historically on kwaniwsam.

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: carisse, Armantrout, Scroggins, Logan + Reid,

russell carisse has a new poem up at dadakuku; Rae Armantrout has a poem up in The New Yorker; Mark Scroggins' work gets some good critical attention by James Berger over at Jacket2; Nate Logan is featured over at Leavings; and Monty Reid is interviewed by Pinhole Poetry, which also includes a new poem.

new from above/ground press: Wars, by Angela Caporaso

Wars
Angela Caporaso
$5

Note:
These visual poems were inspired by some short poems by Wystan Hugh Auden.

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

Angela Caporaso was born in 1962 and she is a visual artist from Caserta (Italy). She has begun to take an interest in figurative arts since the eighties, exhibiting repeatedly both in Italy and abroad. Many of her works are part of public and private collection adding numerous publications to her credit. Angela Caporaso is focusing on visual poetry and artists books, working with collages, trash-art and, more recently, digital formats. http://www.angelacaporaso.com/

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