new from above/ground press: whittle gristle, by Lori Anderson Moseman

whittle gristle
Lori Anderson Moseman
$5

Kerf

Kerf, the space left by a saw blade,
lets grass blades thrive between
gang planks serving as tables
upturned to become raised beds.
Each surrogate coffin piled on top
of another is mortared together
with fertile soil blessed with seeds.
Combating sterile, reified space,
grass grows tall between table slats—
tall enough to bend like widows
keening with grief, grasping for light.
Doris Salcedo’s Plegaria Muda
is watered by testimony of mothers
of the disappeared in Columbia.
Victims of gang killings in LA
are harbored here, resting
like dry docked skiffs waiting
for a marsh to silt in, for meadow
to offer a softer landing.
Upended table legs are divining rods
hovering over those we won’t forget.
In an act of love, of weekly tending,
docents dutifully trim this grass respite.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

For Lori Anderson Moseman’s recent work, see Quietly Between, a 2022 poetry/photography collaboration available from A Viewing Space. Her recent experimental poetry collections include Darn (Delete Press, 2021) and Y (Operating System, 2019). For her artist book collaboration with Karen Pava Randal, see Full Quiver (Propolis Press, 2015) and Flash Mob (Spuyten Duyvil, 2016). Her collaborations with Brazilian printmaker Sheila Goloborotko include “Jarring Bits” (Talon Review, 2019), “insistence, teeth” (Dusie.org, 2014), Creation (2012), um daqueles lugares sublimes (2008). See https://loriandersonmoseman.com

This is Moseman’s third title with above/ground press, following Okay (2023) and Too Few Words (2023).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: Passing Through: A Traveler’s Log(s) / Movements 1-23, by Thor Polukoshko

Passing Through: A Traveler’s Log(s)
Movements 1-23
Thor Polukoshko
$5

Movements 2-6: The British Museum, London

salty brow      
cotton
plastered    
to skin  
between
shoulder      
blades       
collar not
enough         
ventilation
deep     
breaths         
but     
breaths
within           
cloistered          
wooden prison

tandoori’s
revenge
strikes
in Ancient
Greece

haste back
through time
to proper
receptacle
fountain of
shit under fountain
of knowledge more
sweat more
waiting for other
visitors to use
electric hand-dryer
to hide
noisy shame

repeat: Ancient Egypt
repeat: Medieval Europe
repeat: before gift
shop exit

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Thor Polukoshko was one of the founding editors of Memewar Magazine, and his work has been published in West Coast Line and The Incongruous Quarterly. He teaches English and Creative Writing at Langara College / snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ in Vancouver, where he has organized and hosted the Strangers on a Train reading series for the past decade.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: Manery, Markotić, Doller, Straumsvåg, Heroux, Fagan, Barwin, Reid + Solomon,

forthcoming author Sandra Doller is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Dag T. Straumsvåg and Jason Heroux's collaborative chapbook gets a nice mention by Cary Fagan over at his review blog; Gary Barwin has an archived poem up at The Walrus; Monty Reid is reviewed by Dawn Macdonald; and Misha Solomon has new work up in the Spotlight series.

new from above/ground press: Gag, by Lydia Unsworth

GAG
Lydia Unsworth
$5

And My Body and Your Body Were Shaking Gently With the Laughter That Does Not Stop

He’s fighting with me, trying to return to what it was. It can’t be done. The lid won’t go back on. He says tussle to make it okay, this subtle lack, this distant punching. He says cross. In his world, no one is angry. Life is set up to coil around the children. He can’t process his behaviour midweek. People let each other down. No one is awestruck, horny, devastated. Nothing salubrious in the way the dishes are laid on the table. There are excuses – practical matters get in the way. We don’t understand why we don’t have love, but on the other hand, looking at the calendar, it’s obvious. We work late through the night, feel fury like groundswell. Injustice rises like a trapped vein. There is slowness, which is presented differently to being afraid. There is no cowardice, this is merely convention. I am the wild one. I am the one who has gone wrong. I am the emotional terrorist. It is I who slipped out of the frame. You will ruin my entire life, he says.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: Cay

Lydia Unsworth is a poet based in Greater Manchester, whose recent collections include Mortar (Osmosis), These Steady Bulbs (above / ground) and cement, terraces (Red Ceilings). Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Oxford Poetry and Shearsman Magazine. She is currently undergoing a PhD exploring kinship with disappearing post-industrial architecture. Her latest book is called Arthropod and is published by Death of Workers Whilst Building Skyscrapers.

This is Unsworth’s fourth above/ground press poetry title, after I Have Not Led a Serious Life (2019), Residue (2022) and These Steady Bulbs (2024).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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

Larry Sawyer (1970 - February 28, 2025) : (plus fundraiser,

Sad to hear, through Mark Goldstein and Lea Graham simultaneously, that Toronto-based poet, editor and organizer Larry Sawyer died the other night in Toronto. An active and community-minded poet, publisher and reading series organizer, he authored a small mound of book and chapbook titles, founded and edited milk magazine and spent fifteen years running the Myopic Books Poetry Reading Series in Chicago before relocating to Toronto with his partner, the poet Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, during the first Tr*mp Presidency. If such might be possible, there's currently a fundraiser going on, to help raise funds to hold proper memorials for him in Chicago, Fairborn and Toronto.

above/ground press produced his small chapbook A Chaise Lounge in Hell (2003), and I originally connected to him and his work through his online poetry journal milk magazine (begun as a print journal back in 1998). It wasn't until they'd moved north that I had a chance to meet him, once he'd started the milk magazine reading series over at Type Books on Queen Street, and I read there at least twice, including in 2022 [see my note on such here]. According to his Facebook page, he signed a contract with Guernica Editions back in May, 2024 for The Blue Butterfly (2026). It would have been nice for him to have seen that publication through. Tony Trigilio posted a note on him here, with another tribute offered by Mark Lamoureaux here. Larry was a good fella, and huge supporter of poetry. He will be missed.

Alan Parry reviews Lydia Unsworth's Residue (2022)

Merseyside-based writer, editor and lecturer Alan Parry was good enough to provide the first review for Lydia Unsworth's Residue (2022) over at The Broken Spine. Thanks so much! You can read the original post here. As Parry writes:

Lydia Unsworth’s Residue is not here to tuck you in with neat resolutions or let you bask in warm nostalgia. This is a book that drags you through the wreckage of past homes, past selves, and forces you to confront what’s left behind. It’s restless. It’s jagged. It doesn’t give a fuck about linearity or easy sentimentality. Instead, it builds a geography of dislocation: places that don’t fit, memories that won’t sit still, identities that keep shifting under your feet.

It reads like a poetic fever dream, a history of homes unravelled in snapshots, from childhood to now. Each poem is tethered to a location, but don’t expect stable ground. These spaces are in flux, warped by time, distorted by memory. Think of it less like a roadmap and more like a ghost tour – each stop marked by what is caught in liminal spaces, what stains, what refuses to be scrubbed away.

Place as a Wound, Memory as the Scar
Unsworth knows that home is never just bricks and mortar. No, it’s a psychological battlefield! Manchester Road (formative years) puts you right in the thick of it, in a house ‘up against a long main road’ – where privacy is a joke and exposure is constant. There’s a hole – literal or metaphorical – ‘like a hole through the middle of me’, an image so blunt it leaves a bruise. This is what Residue does best: it turns domestic space into something unstable, something that betrays and consumes.

Then there’s Castle Irwell (a messy escape), which captures the chaos of shared living, where bodies blur into each other and solitude is a luxury. ‘Eleven is a team but what I needed was confessional.’ That line alone is a gut punch. Because what’s lonelier than being surrounded by people and still feeling like a ghost?

The Poetry of Fragmentation: Syntax as Architecture
Unsworth doesn’t write neat, tidy verse. Her poetry is fractured, staccato, broken (like our spines) in all the right places. It mirrors the instability of memory, how it skips, erases, distorts. In Brook Drive (including the day that cherry tree was planted), she captures the fluidity of perception in clipped, surreal bursts:

‘spaces are ill-defined / corners become whatever you like / a scurry of ants in a decked-out butter tub.’

Objects lose their meaning. Boundaries shift. Reality is whatever your mind decides it is. And the form of the poem reflects that, refusing to sit still, refusing to behave.

Then there’s Furnesses (tiny fires), where short, rapid-fire lines create a breathless momentum. ‘A ceiling high above a hide of eyes / settle into complete knot of two and hi-fi.’ It’s claustrophobic, relentless, like trying to get comfortable in a room that keeps shrinking around you.

The Emotional Aftershock: What Residue Leaves Behind
The real power of Residue is how it lingers. These poems aren’t just recollections. They haunt! Riverbank (it ended badly) takes something as mundane as a pigeon and turns it into an omen:

‘a pigeon billows through the curtains / disorder of cloth and stifled wing.’

The weight of absence, the ache of something lost, it’s all there, stripped bare. And then it hits you with: ‘only so much can be held / only so much can be held in.’ That’s the punchline of life, right? We try to hold onto places, people, versions of ourselves, but in the end, most of it slips through.

Heald Place (I begin to show my age) lays it out in brutal clarity. The walls of the house are ‘smashed to bits on a Saturday night by drunken younghards.’ Decay isn’t poetic here. It’s inevitable, ugly, and unceremonious. The past doesn’t crumble beautifully. Rather it gets kicked in, pissed on, and left behind.

Final Verdict: Read This Before You Move Again
Without doubt, Lydia Unsworth has written something that refuses to settle. Residue is what happens when you put a stethoscope to the walls of every place you’ve ever lived and listen to what’s still breathing inside. It’s fragmented, disorienting, sometimes even messy. Here’s the kicker, that’s the point! Memory isn’t a straight line. Neither is belonging.

So, if you like your poetry neat and polished, this might not be for you. But if you want something raw, something that gets under your skin, something that reminds you what it feels like to stand in the doorway of an old home and realise you don’t quite fit there anymore… this is it!.

Unsworth doesn’t just write about places. She writes about what places do to us. And Residue makes damn sure you don’t forget it.

some author activity: Birchard, Earl, Norris, Armantrout + Pittella,

Guy Birchard's work is discussed by Yukon poet Dawn Macdonald, over at her recently-launched substack, where she also discussed Amanda Earl's work and Ken Norris' work; the full text of "Poetry Meets Physics: Poet Rae Armantrout Reading and in Conversation with Physicist Ben Buchler. Street Theatre, Canberra, Thursday 19 September 2024" is online as a pdf; the first four poems from Pittella's above/ground press chapbook have been translated into Italian by Gianluca Rizzo and published online at rossocorpolingua: and Pittella also has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series.

above/ground press as part of the Riverbed Year-End Fundraiser!

above/ground press has donated a whole stack of chapbook titles for the sake of a fundraiser that Riverbed Reading Series, an Ottawa-based multidisciplinary performance series, is currently running. Here's the list of above/ground press titles offered, by some of the poets that have read as part of their fine series:

Shane Rhodes, It’s Here / All the Beauty / I Told You About (2024); Chris Johnson, Gravenhurst, a failed record of a roadtrip in haibun (2019); Claudia Coutu Radmore, camera obscura (2019); Chris Johnson, some of the raccoon poems (2022); Report from the Anstee Society. Vol. 1 No. 1. (2022); Grant Wilkins, Reading The Great Classics Of Canlit through Book 5 of bpNichol’s The Martyrology (2022); AJ Dolman, Scalpel, tea and shot glass (2004); Cameron Anstee, Regarding Renewal (2012); Cameron Anstee, Frank St. (2010); Mahaila Smith, Enter the Hyperreal (2024); Grant Wilkins, In Which Archibald Lampman / Translates Arthur Rimbaud (2023). So many things! They're holding their in-person event this Sunday, so why not take a look? Otherwise, there are ways to catch their fundraiser online, as well. Here's the email that Riverbed sent out, earlier today:

Riverbed Year-End Fundraiser
Sunday, March 2, 2025 from 1-3pm at Club SAW
in-person event only
featuring the launch of a limited edition commemorative five-year anniversary chapbook, silent auction with donations from local businesses and community organizations, special performances from co-founders Ellen Chang-Richardson and nina jane drystek, and a poetry karaoke open mic.

Commemorative chapbooks will be for sale at the event in a limited run of 30 copies. Payment via cash or e-transfer to riverbedreadingseries@gmail.com.

Donations from Evil Llama and Friends, Luck and Lavender Studio, Perfect Books Ottawa, Victoire Boutique, Beechwood Pottery Studio, Ottawa International Writers Festival, Versefest, Lindsay Meyers RMT, Curtis Perry Photography, Art House Café, Manahil Bandukwala Art, and more.

If people cannot attend in-person, they can make a donation to support Riverbed online: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-riverbed-reading-series-S6

new from above/ground press: THE ORCHIDS, by Ryan Skrabalak

THE ORCHIDS
Ryan Skrabalak
$5

What all I’m about to share
Misters, is the tape running
Or dripping down my pricked calve
These men fill me up
With velocity and skin for death
In a way I’ve come to realize
Torture is a distillate of reality

This land isn’t your land
You are being detained. Also
Fix a quick mix of piss and coins
Lay your tongue over the zinc
You can’t buy your way out
Upload your death
Drive at earliest convenience

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Ryan Skrabalak most recently wrote National Lube (speCt!, 2024) and The Technicolor Sycamore 10,000 Afternoon Family Earth Band Revue (Ursus Americanus, 2024), among other chapbooks. He lives in "Kingston, New York," where he runs and edits Spiral Editions, a poetry press.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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, Robinson, Dyckman, Earl + Deutch,

Frances Boyle is interviewed by Cara Waterfall for her Archipel; Elizabeth Robinson and Susanne Dyckman are zoom-interviewed on collaborative ekphrasis; Amanda Earl writes a guest post for Nikki Dudley's blog; Amanda Deutch has won the Ottoline Prize from Fence Books, which means her debut full-length will be appearing within the year (and part of the manuscript includes elements of her second above/ground press chapbook; and I've started posting occasionally to the Peripety and/or Tronies blog, run by Olivia Cronk, where I will be starting a very occasional "Canadian Poets Series" come April 1st.

new from above/ground press: free jazz, by Jacob Braun

free jazz
Jacob Braun
$5

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published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jacob Braun is from Thorold, ON. His debut chapbook Tryangles was published by Trainwreck Press in 2020. His writing has since appeared in The Antigonish Review, The Malahat Review, fillingStation, Word docs, PDFs, Moleskines and dreams.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: then / here / now / there, by Cary Fagan

then / here / now / there
Cary Fagan
$5

a man on tenth street planting begonias / how afraid
and yet desperate to get up before class / she’s trying
to learn harmonica / torn / you say to him, ‘you are my
torturer’ / last night dreaming that i was dreaming of
my father / it isn’t necessary to finish war and peace,
is it? / when I have a good pen i want to write for its
sake

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cary Fagan has two books coming in 2025, A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News (book*hug) and Robot Island (Tundra Books). He is the co-publisher of the chapbook house espresso and the publisher of another chapbook house, Found Object and occasionally reviews chapbooks on word.music.blog.

This is Fagan's second above/ground press title, after Fifty-Two Lines About Henry (2024).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: pulp necrosis, by Gwen Aube

pulp necrosis
Gwen Aube
$5

Today I almost posted a photo of the tornado that struck Montreal when I ended my relationship. It’s been three months. Yesterday I sang in the streets with six thousand people between Station Guy-Concordia and Station Atwater. In 1957 Christine Jorgensen fucked the man in the moon. Today the girl at Tim Hortons wanted to tell me something funny but I don’t speak French and she doesn’t speak English. The sky was already so dark when I left the house for coffee. We laughed anyways. Her at whatever she was laughing at and I at nothing. 

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Gwen Aube is grateful to have received a decade of generous support from the Ontario Works welfare program. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming from LittlePuss Press.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: Lives of Dead Poets, by Penn Kemp

Lives of Dead Poets
Penn Kemp
$5

Die Verse

As if. What matters. As if. What’s left.
As if. We have only our elegies. As if.

Even the need for elegy. As if remembering
and inventing—invenio —as if.

As I come upon. As I discover.
As if in passing through this vale.

As if memory’s world is
as if trudging up sludge,

As if the word that springs to
mind is devotion, as if, despite

the mess, life's unholy
business forever left

unfinished. Dead
poets, by your name

we shall know you,
by your work.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: James Kemp

Penn Kemp has been celebrated as a trailblazer since her first publication (Coach House, 1972). Kemp has long participated in Canada’s cultural life, with 30+ books of poetry and prose; seven plays and multimedia galore in collaborations like www.riverrevery.ca. She was London, Ontario’s inaugural Poet Laureate, The League of Canadian Poets’ Spoken Word Artist (2015) and Life Member, acclaimed “a foremother of Canadian poetry”. Recent poetry collaborations include Intent on Flowering (https://rosegardenpress.ca); P.S., https://www.gapriotpress.com/shop/p/penn-kemp-sharon-thesen-p-s and her co-edited anthology for Ukraine, https://www.rsitoski.com/poems-in-response-to-peril. Penn’s latest collection of sound poetry, Incrementally, text and album, is on https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp. Join her on https://www.instagram.com/pennkemp, https://pennkemp.substack.com, https://x.com/pennkemp and www.facebook.com/pennkemppoet. See also www.pennkemp.weebly.com and www.pennkemp.wordpress.com.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: Rosenthal, carisse, Ballard, Niespodziany + Kelly,

Sarah Rosenthal has three poems up as part of LAdige Review's "California Series"; russell carisse has new work up at The Pi Review; Micah Ballard has new work up at the Spotlight series; Benjamin Niespodziany has new work at Bennington Review; and forthcoming author J-T Kelly is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

The Factory Reading Series, March 16, 2025: Etcheverry, Manery, mclennan, Turnbull + Wilkins,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya (Ottawa)
Rob Manery (Vancouver)
rob mclennan (Ottawa)
Chris Turnbull (Kemptville)
+
Grant Wilkins (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Doors 7pm / Reading 7:30pm
Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya, Chilean-Canadian poet, lives in Ottawa, Canada. Professor of philosophy, master's degree in Hispanic language and literature, doctor in comparative literature. He was a member of the Escuela de Santiago and Grupo América, Chilean poetic groups of the 1960s-70s. His poetry, prose and criticism have been published in various countries in magazines and books in Spanish and translations into English, French, Italian and Portuguese. He has published art in various media and formats, on paper and virtually. His latest books are Clorodiaxepóxido, poems, Chile, 2017; Los herederos, science fiction novel, 2018; Canadografia, anthology of Spanish-Canadian prose, Chile, 2017; Samarkanda, poems, Canada, 2019; Outsiders, narratives in English, 2020; Orejas y vanguardias, Chile, 2024. Recently appears in the anthologies Wurlitzer, cantantes del recuerdo en la poesía chilena, Chile, 2018; Antología de la Revista Entre Paréntesis Chile, 2018; Antología de la poesía chilena de la última década, (Chile, 2018), Antología mundial: la papa, seguridad alimentaria (Bolivia, 2019), Bolivia, 2019; Anthologie de la poésie chilienne, 26 poètes d'aujourd'hui (France 2021). He is a collaborator and member of the editorial committee of Entreparéntesis magazine, from Chile, and Off the Record magazine, also Chilean. His latest book of poems is Orejas y vanguardias, Chile, 2024.

Robert Manery lives in Vancouver, BC, where he is the editor of Some, a print-only poetry magazine. He is the author of As They Say (BlazeVOX, 2024), It’s Not As If It Hasn’t Been Said Before (Tsunami Editions, 2001), and the chapbooks Richter-Rauzer Variations (above/ground press, 2012), Many, Not Any (Some Books, 2019), and Elegies (above/ground press, 2022).

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. His latest collection is Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025).

Chris Turnbull's recent book is cipher (Beautiful Outlaw Press 2024). Her most recent chapbook is x° (Gap Riot Press). She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails or their pieces found on trails.

Grant Wilkins is an occasional poet, printer and papermaker who has made a practice of doing strange things to other people’s words. He has degrees in History & Classical Civilization and in English, and he’s working on another one in Art History. He lives in Ottawa on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

collage by Gary Barwin,

some author activity: Logan, Burdick, Brenner, Barwin + Strang,

Nate Logan has new work up at The Pi Review, as does Alice Burdick; Summer Brenner is interviewed by Jane Rosenberg LaForge for Rain Taxi; Gary Barwin has posted a new poem-video online; Nate Logan also has new work up at The Under Review; and Catriona Strang joins the faculty at Banff Writing Studios as part of their summer program.

new from above/ground press: H IS THE LETTER OF THE DOOR, by Maxwell Gontarek

Maxwell Gontarek
H IS THE LETTER OF THE DOOR
$5

We shivered for the sinister flatness of the momentous
There’s no dawn
Iris loads the lake with its scent
It’s where the silicas wake up at the cloud ends
It’s where the ground nerve superimposes its stakes
            on the routs of which we all are is a part
It’s what amasses as history under the heels of our heels rigid
            and coruscant we feel ourselves stiffening with
The passage in landscape
Who pays
The carnage in soil
And that that carnage disappoints above below with such height
“For instants sometimes I cry” is the prime grammar of song
The “I” is a bell
The horizon is a showy diaphragmatic eye
To sow is to ex
True act the avenue

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Maxwell Gontarek has poems out in Grotto, Lana Turner, Coma, La Lancha, Tagvverk, and elsewhere, and his pamphlet, A Perfect Donkey, is forthcoming from Creative Writing Department. With Léa Fougerolle, he runs the translation project verseant. He has lived in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Belgrade, Langres, and Lafayette, LA.

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: TERMINALS, by Nathanael O'Reilly

TERMINALS
Nathanael O'Reilly
$5

Equinox

When you sit by the fireplace alone
reading Yeats, stare into the black night,
remember the summer evening when you
placed your right hand on my forearm out-
side the cinema, removed your mask,
declared your love, kissed me in the shadows.
Parked taxi-drivers watched like sentinels
as we caressed, kissed in orange lamplight.
Parakeets tucked heads under their wings,
settled down for the night in the cool air.
A brushtail possum scampered over a fence,
up a tree trunk to the shelter of leaves.
A rummaging in a bin, perhaps a rat,
disturbed our carefully cultivated poise.
We held each other beneath southern stars,
embraced the autumnal equinox.
I remember your sharp white teeth,
distant heels ticking across pavements,
trying to slow down, savour every last
second of our spontaneous self-indulgence.
We did not foresee our undoing
years later in a disintegrating foreign city.
We had no idea how we would feel
in the future, didn’t think about the hour
of passion as existing beyond the now.
As you sit by the fire in your snug house
stare into the black night outside and wonder
if my arms are lovelier than aloneness.

Note: A terminal utilizing the end-words from Denise O’Hagan’s “A World in Waiting.”

Note on the Form
The terminal form was invented by the Australian poet John Tranter (1943-2023). The final word of each line in a source poem is used as the end-word for each line of a new poem. For more on the terminal form and Tranter’s work, see Brian Henry’s article, “John Tranter’s New Form(alism): The Terminal,” Antipodes, volume 18, issue 1 (June 2004), pages 36-43.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian poet residing in Texas. His collections include Separation Blues: Poems 1994-2024 (Flying Islands Books, 2024), Dublin Wandering (Recent Work Press, 2024), Landmarks (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024), Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Downingfield Press, 2024), Boulevard (Downingfield Press, 2024), (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020), and Preparations for Departure (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2017). His work appears in journals and anthologies published in fifteen countries, including Anthropocene, Cordite, The Honest Ulsterman, Mascara, Meanjin, New World Writing Quarterly, Rabbit, Southword, Trasna and Westerly. He is poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.

This is O’Reilly’s third above/ground press title, after Dear Nostalgia (2023) and Blue (2020).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: Boughn, Schapira, Levy, Ross, Clayton, Barton + The Peter F Yacht Club,

Michael Boughn has a YouTube channel, by the way, in which he's been posting a variety of reading videos, including himself and Victor Coleman, etcetera; Kate Schapira writes about the LA wildfires; John Levy has a poem for Stuart Ross up at International Times; Simon Brown has translated poems by Conyer Clayton into French for Revue Watts; John Barton has a new poem up  at Identity Theory; and a stranger recently sent me a photograph of this Peter F Yacht Club hat he picked up in Montreal, asking if know where the real yacht club might be. I have no idea! I would love to know,

the above/ground press postal increase sale,

above/ground press (b. 1993) doesn’t usually offer any sales during this time of the year, but with the thirty percent increase recently via Canada Post, and a couple of substantial printing increases over the past three years, it puts the press at even more of a loss, so I thought it would be worth offering a series of discounted bundles from the wealth of the above/ground press backlist/frontlist to help with cashflow:

ANY FOUR TITLES FOR $20 (postage included)
ANY TEN TITLES FOR $40 + shipping / Canada add $25 / US add $30 / International add $32
ANY TWENTY-FOUR TITLES FOR $80 + shipping / Canada add $30 / US add $33 / International add $35
ANY FORTY-FIVE TITLES FOR $160 (postage included)
                    / all prices in Canadian dollars ; “any” is subject to availability,

normally single author chapbooks (mostly poetry but some prose) titles are $5 each (with issues of G U E ST [a journal of guest editors] $6 each and issues of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] $8 each and copies of the Report from the Society festschrift series anywhere from $6 to $8). 2025 subscriptions, also, are still available as well [$75 Canadian in Canada/$75 US in United States; further info here], in case that appeals instead (I might have to actually increase my subscription rates for next year, but it is too late for 2025). I’ll keep this sale going until July 9, 2025 [which will be above/ground press’ thirty-second birthday, by the way]. I mean, if it helps get further books out into the hands of interested readers, this is a good thing. and remember, above/ground press is entirely unfunded, but for sales and subscriptions and sheer optimism (and my own pocket). there isn’t funding available for this kind of activity.

Make your own bundles! Many authors even have multiple titles across the press, with the link below to their most recent (and links within to their prior). Want all four titles by Amish Trivedi, for example, or a handful of Amanda Earl chapbooks? Why not both natalie hanna offerings, or two of three chapbooks by Julia Polyck-O’Neill? Other authors with multiple titles in print include Jessica Smith, Pearl Pirie, Gil McElroy, Stephen Collis, Brenda Iijima, Jason Christie, Rae Armantrout, Kyle Flemmer, rob mclennan, Stephanie Gray, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Hugh Thomas, Jérôme Melançon, Alice Burdick, Melissa Eleftherion, Ben Robinson, MLA Chernoff, Grant Wilkins, Leesa Dean, Nathanael O’Reilly, Sacha Archer, Lori Anderson Moseman, Ken Norris, Emily Izsak, ryan fitzpatrick and a whole stack of others. Maybe you want a stack of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] issues? Maybe you want a whole slew of the prose series, issues of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] or the Report from the Society festschrift titles? Try me! If I still have copies, it totally works. While supplies last on individual titles, obviously.

To order, send cheques 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 ; questions? shoot me an email,

Here’s the past decade-plus: links go to the most recent title by author, listed in reverse order of publication date, with the link to their most recent offering (if you wish, I could always take suggestions on what interests you and provide titles of my own selection, if this list seems too vast/overwhelming): Catriona Strang, Andy Weaver, Alice Burdick, The Peter F Yacht Club #34 : 2024 Holiday Special, Jason Heroux and Dag T. Straumsvag, Carter McKenzie, Dani Spinosa, JoAnna Novak, Julia Cohen, Susan Gevirtz, Drew McEwan, Conal Smiley, Brook Houglum, russell carisse, Sue Landers, Nate Logan, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #43, Alexander Hammond Benedict, Mckenzie Strath, John Levy, Vik Shirley, Ian FitzGerald, Peter Jaeger, ryan fitzpatrick, Scott Inniss, Shane Rhodes, Mahaila Smith, Gil McElroy, Carlos A. Pittella, Pearl Pirie, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #42, Chris Banks, M.A.C. Farrant, Helen Hajnoczky, rob mclennan, Kacper Bartczak (trans. by Mark Tardi), Ken Norris, Saba Pakdel, Hope Anderson, Sacha Archer, Peter Myers, Julia Polyck-O'Neill, Kyla Houbolt, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #41 (TENTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE), Dale Tracy, Phil Hall + Steven Ross Smith, The Peter F Yacht Club #33 : 2024 VERSeFest Special, Melissa Eleftherion, Jacob Wren, Katie Ebbitt, Amanda Deutch, Kyle Flemmer, Pete Smith, Micah Ballard, Clint Burnham, Angela Caporaso, Cary Fagan, Blunt Research Group, A Crown of Omnivorous Teeth: poems in honour of Chris Johnson and raccoons in general, Gary Barwin, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #40, Lydia Unsworth, Zane Koss, Ben Robinson, Colin Dardis, Aaron Tucker, Adriana Oniță, Julie Carr + rob mclennan, Stephen Collis, Rae Armantrout, Jason Christie, Nikki Reimer, Noah Berlatsky, Miranda Mellis, MLA Chernoff, Marita Dachsel, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #39,Report from the fitzpatrick Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Kevin Stebner, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Robert van Vliet, Stephen Cain, Geoffrey Olsen, Heather Cadsby, Evan Williams, Grant Wilkins, nina jane drystek, Sophia Magliocca, Jennifer Baker, Karen Massey, Jérôme Melançon, Monty Reid, Jamie Hilder, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #38, George Bowering + Artie Gold, Ryan Stearne, Brad Vogler, Andrew Gorin, Report from the Pirie Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Julia Drescher, Joseph Donato, Samuel Ace, Stuart Ross, Leesa Dean, Report from the Reimer Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #37, Jessi MacEachern, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #26, Jordan Davis, The Peter F Yacht Club #32 : 2023 VERSeFest Special, Report from the Smith Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Nick Chhoeun, Ben Jahn, William Vallières, Report from the Iijima Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Derek Beaulieu, Isabel Sobral Campos, Mark Scroggins, Laura Walker, Report from the Trivedi Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Nathanael O'Reilly, Lindsey Webb, Jason Heroux, Barbara Henning, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #25, Touch the Donkey #36, The Peter F Yacht Club #31, Douglas Glover, Report from the Hogg Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #24, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Report from the McCarthy Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Report from the Hajnoczky Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Adrienne Adams, Chris Johnson, Geoffrey Nilson, Genevieve Kaplan, Melissa Spohr Weiss, Lori Anderson Moseman, Christopher Patton, Leigh Chadwick, Report from the Mangold Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Report from the Betts Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Report from the Hall Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Touch the Donkey #34, Report from the Anstee Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, N.W. Lea, Jed Munson, David Miller, Matthew Gwathmey, Report from the Reid Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Michael Boughn, Laura Kelsey, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #23, Report from the Robinson Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Anne Tardos, Report from the Siklosi Society. Vol. 1 No. 1 + No. 2, Vivan Lewin, Wade Bell, Joanna Arnott, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #22, Rob Manery, Lillian Nećakov, Report from the Ross Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #21, Report from the Earl Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Amanda Earl, Report from the Brockwell Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, Karl Jirgens, df parizeau, Wanda Praamsma, Michael Schuffler, Calling to the Sun: Poems for Isabella Wang, Touch the Donkey #32, Natalie Simpson, Stan Rogal, the Peter F. Yacht Club #30 [the virtual issue], Sean Braune and Émilie Dionne, Urië V-J, Sarah Rosenthal, Simon Brown, Mayan Godmaire, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #20, Phil Hall, Kevin Varrone, Susan Rukeyser, Barry McKinnon, Benjamin Niespodziany, Terri Witek and Amaranth Borsuk, George Bowering, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #19, Franklin Bruno, Emily Izsak, Jen Tynes, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #18, Valerie Witte, Robert Hogg, Ken Sparling, Jessi MacEachern, Nathan Alexander Moore, Katie Naughton, Summer Brenner, Monica Mody, Kōan Anne Brink, Gregory Betts, Touch the Donkey #30, Michael Sikkema, Jamie Townsend, Conor Mc Donnell, Adam Thomlison, Alyssa Bridgman, James Lindsay, Amish Trivedi, Ava Hofmann, Sandra Moussempès (trans. Eléna Rivera), Edward Smallfield, Valerie Coulton, James Hawes, Anik See, David Dowker, Shelly Harder, Alexander Joseph, Joseph Mosconi, Brenda Iijima, Al Kratz, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #16, Saeed Tavanaee Marvi (trans. Khashayar Mohammadi), katie o'brien, N.W. Lea, Andrew Brenza, The Peter F Yacht Club #29, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #15, Dennis Cooley, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #14, rob mclennan and Gary Barwin, Kristjana Gunnars, Nathanael O'Reilly, Baron Rocco Fleetcrest-Seacobs, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #13, Cecilia Tamburri Stuart, Keith Waldrop, Amelia Does, Franco Cortese, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Billy Mavreas, Sarah Burgoyne and Susan Burgoyne, Paul Perry, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #12, Kemeny Babineau, Rose Maloukis, Sarah Burgoyne, Buck Downs, Kevin McPherson Eckhoff, Orchid Tierney, Misha Solomon, Andrew Cantrell, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #11, Michael e. Casteels + Nick Papaxanthos, Ashley Yang-Thompson + Mikko Harvey, Khashayar Mohammadi, Andrea Rexilius, Lance La Rocque, G UE S T [a journal of guest editors] #10, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #9, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] #25, George Stanley, The Peter F. Yacht Club #28 ; VERSeFest (postponement) special, Rachel Kearney, J.R. Carpenter, Guy Birchard, Razielle Aigen, Anthony Etherin, Eric Baus, Ian McCulloch, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #8, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #7, Jessica Smith, Mary Kasimor, Margaret Christakos, Allyson Paty, Hawad (trans. Jake Syersak), Simina Banu, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #6, Andrew K Peterson, Susanne Dyckman, John Newlove, Ben Meyerson, Natalie Lyalin, Michael Dennis, Jane Virginia Rohrer, Chris Turnbull, Marilyn Irwin, Conyer Clayton, Frances Boyle, Kemeny Babineau, Kate Siklosi, Mairéad Byrne, Kimberly Campanello, Kyle Kinaschuk, Gil McElroy, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #2, The Peter F. Yacht Club #27, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Stephanie Gray, Heather Sweeney, R. Kolewe, Evan Gray, Dale Smith, Virginia Konchan, Joshua James Collis, Laura Farina, Jennifer Stella, Sarah Mangold, Cole Swensen, MC Hyland, G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #1, Megan Kaminski, Sara Renee Marshall, Mark Laliberte, Lisa Rawn, Sean Braune, Michael Martin Shea, Ian Dreiblatt, Uxío Novoneyra (trans. Erín Moure), Stephen Brockwell, Phil Hall / Stuart Kinmond, natalie hanna, Miguel E. Ortiz Rodríguez, Natalee Caple, Travis Sharp, Beth Ayer, Jon Boisvert, Jenna Jarvis, Lise Downe, Allison Cardon, Lea Graham, Tim Atkins, Gregory Betts + Arnold McBay, Andrew Wessels, Marthe Reed, The Peter F. Yacht Club #26, Steve McCaffery, Gary Barwin and Tom Prime, Gary Barwin and Alice Burdick, Alice Notley, Rachel Mindell, Eleni Zisimatos, Adrienne Gruber, Anna Gurton-Wachter, Matthew Johnstone, Alyssa Bridgman, Elizabeth Robinson, Eric Schmaltz, Joe Blades, Katy Lederer, Kristina Drake, Stephanie Bolster, Adele Graf, Sarah Dowling, nathan dueck, Sarah Cook, Ian Whistle, Faizal Deen, The Peter F. Yacht Club #25, Marilyn Irwin, Jordan Abel, Sarah Fox, Jake Syersak, philip miletic, Carrie Hunter, Sarah Swan, John Barton, Carrie Olivia Adams, Dana Claxton, Michael Turner, Christian Bök, Neil Flowers, Bronwen Tate, lary timewell, The Peter F. Yacht Club #24, Yuri Izdryk (trans. Roman Ivashkiv and Erín Moure),  Katie L. Price, Roland Prevost, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Hugh Thomas, Nicole Markotić, Jamie Bradley, Jennifer Kronovet, Kate Schapira, Susanne Dyckman, Emily Ursuliak, Eric Baus, Rachel Moritz, Janice Tokar, Ben Ladouceur and Dennis Tourbin.