new from above/ground press: BRADE LANDS, by Peter Myers

BRADE LANDS
Peter Myers
$5

July 16

I’m back with the purity condition

longing for right activity or at least a machine trusted to draw lines of distinction

frenetic confession not directed toward any one thing but operating as a strategy or way of life which upon zoom-out reveals the larger structure that will have been what was aspired to

I find myself in a clearing

troubled by attachments the having of them

I embrace them with my arms

they disintegrate but I still hold on

then the hug I give a friend becomes the one necessary condition to turn them to dust in my arms

so I’m walking sick in the cloud

it’s bound to me I can’t get out without risking agony

though somewhere a grip is loosening

as friends age I see how they become either more themselves or less but don’t maintain a constant distance and I wonder how I have moved or changed or

a green wave

purity comes in through cracks as fluid or maybe light

the edge a stable ghost

one time I told my mom I was trying to drink less coffee

she was incredulous she asked me why             

                                    [ green wave ]

~~~

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

Peter Myers is a poet living in New York. His recent poems have appeared in Fence, Hot Pink Mag, jubilat, and Nomaterialism. He has written essays and reviews for Annulet, Full Stop, and Chicago Review.

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: Boyle, Konchan, Smith, Reid, Kearney + Scroggins,

Frances Boyle has a poem in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Virginia Konchan has a poem up at Poets.org; Pete Smith has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Monty Reid, Rae Kearney, and even Frances Boyle, as well; and Mark Scroggins has a new poem up at Merion West.

new from above/ground press: Process, by Julia Polyck-O’Neill

Process
Julia Polyck-O’Neill
$5

Lisa, Lisa
 
velvet
ribbons      
& tender buttonhole

de-influence
me sip
air

powder’s gentlest
breaths its rare
sapidity

surface the
idle she-
capital

the pungency
of new
bloom

the
rose
bud

dew
& warm
air

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

Julia Polyck-O’Neill (they/she) is an artist, curator, critic, poet, and writer. They are currently the Michael Ridley Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Guelph and a former SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at York University’s Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology. Starting in July 2024, they will be an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Her research explores feminist, digital approaches to interdisciplinary artists’ archives and intersections between archives and creative praxis. Her publications appear in Amodern, Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft (The Journal for Aesthetics and General Art History), English Studies in Canada, BC Studies, Canadian Literature, and other places.

This is Polyck-O’Neill’s fourth above/ground press title, after femme (2016), Everything will be taken away (2018) and poem | image | self (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

some author activity: Heroux, Houbolt, Banks, Flemmer, Armantrout, Campos + Nilson,

Jason Heroux has some poems up at anti-heroin chic; Kyla Houbolt has a new poem up for National Poetry Month at the Chaudiere Books blog, as does forthcoming author Chris Banks and Kyle Flemmer; Rae Armantrout has a poem up in The New Yorker; Isabel Sobral Campos has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series, and do you know what Geoffrey Nilson has been up to?

new from above/ground press: DAWN’S FOOL, by Kyla Houbolt

DAWN’S FOOL
Kyla Houbolt
$5
 

Dawn’s Fool

In the dawn window
above the night candle
I lift a curtain
to see silhouettes'
slow shift to color
and transparent utility.

Soon day reveals
its sacred flaws
but now sleep's
fugitive magic gentles
what remains shadowed

and there is the dove
who science knows
as a most foolish bird,
gilded now
with a moment's blush
of her ancient roles:
peace bringer, signal
of God's mercy.

I watch her trying
once again to build
a nest where a nest
won't hold
the way she does each year
exactly as I do here.

She will lay
her eggs and some
will hatch to become
more foolish birds
bringing the message of hope
deferred and peace
yet to come.

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

cover photo: David Fedor-Cunningham

Kyla Houbolt writes poems and occasional reviews, and takes care of two goats. https://kylahoubolt.us/

Dawn’s Fool was originally published by Ice Floe Press, in 2020.

This is Houbolt’s second above/ground press title, after But Then I Thought (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 www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Solomon, Berlatsky, Rogal, carisse, Baus + Dreiblatt,

Misha Solomon wrote on the late Ian Stephens for The Fiddlehead; Noah Berlatsky is interviewed over at talking about strawberries all of the time, where Stan Rogal and russell carisse also have poems; and the video from Eric Baus and Ian Dreiblatt's zoom-reading in Jack Krick's Hugely Popular series is now online.

some author activity: Kemp-Gee, Mody, Beaulieu, O'Reilly, Scroggins, van Vliet + Berlatsky,

Meghan Kemp-Gee has a new poem in Southeast Review; Monica Mody has new work in the Spotlight series; Derek Beaulieu has new work at petrichor; Nathanael O'Reilly is interviewed over at The Wild Umbrella; Mark Scroggins is interviewed at talking about strawberries all of the time, where Robert van Vliet also has poems; and Noah Berlatsky has a new poem at dadakuku.

new from above/ground press: Gnomics, by Dale Tracy

Gnomics
Dale Tracy
$5

Ars Poetica

You must eat your midnight and roses
or there’ll be no pounder of spices.

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

Dale Tracy is the author of Derelict Bicycles (Anvil Press, 2022), her first full-length poetry collection. She also wrote the chapbooks Lines That Open (Surrey Art Gallery, 2023), The Mystery of Ornament (above/ground press, 2020), and Celebration Machine (Proper Tales Press, 2018) and the academic monograph With the Witnesses: Poetry, Compassion, and Claimed Experience (McGill-Queen’s, 2017). She is a faculty member in the English Department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

This is Tracy’s second above/ground press title, after The Mystery of Ornament (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: Mc Donnell, Caporaso, Levy, Deutch, Unrau, Logan + Pirie,

Conor Mc Donnell has a new essay up at Chris Banks' new online journal, The Woodlot; Angela Caporaso and forthcoming author John Levy both have poems in the new issue of talking about strawberries all of the time; Amanda Deutch has new work at Warmly Zine; and Melanie Dennis Unrau, Nate Logan and Pearl Pirie each have new poems up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month!

some author activity: Davis, Robinson, Eleftherion, Mohammadi, Earl + Boyle,

Jordan Davis has a new poem up at the arts fuse; Kevin Heslop interviews Ben Robinson over at The Miramichi Reader; Melissa Eleftherion has new work up at Barren Magazine; both Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi and Amanda Earl have new work in the ex-puritan; and Frances Boyle has a poem in the new issue of consilience.