some author activity: Robinson, Siklosi, Betts, Etherin + Niespodziany,

Elizabeth Robinson has some new work up at Posit; Kate Siklosi, Gregory Betts and Nasser Hussain are interviewed by Anthony Etherin and Clara Daneri as part of Episode 24 of The Penteract Podcast; and forthcoming author Benjamin Niespodziany is a runner up for the 2021 Greg Grummer Poetry Contest over at phoebe.

Penteract Press interviews above/ground press

Anthony Etherin [noted above/ground press author] recently sent me a small handful of interview questions on above/ground press, which he has now posted as part of the Penteract Press website. Thanks so much! Apparently he's slowly working a series of interviews with small and micro presses, so I would recommend keeping an eye out on what might next emerge, yes?

Gary Barwin : Recommended Reading : Simina Banu + Margaret Christakos

Our pal (and above/ground press author) Gary Barwin was good enough to mention a couple of above/ground press titles--Simina Banu's Tomorrow, adagio (2019) and Margaret Christakos' Retreat Diary 2019 (2019)--as part of a list of "Recommended Reading" over at The Fiddlehead; thanks so much! You can see his original post and list here (including titles by Derek Beaulieu, Anthony Etherin, Gregory Betts, Mark Laba and Tanis MacDonald). As he writes:

Simina Banu: Tomorrow, adagio (above/ground press)

Mesmerizingly preternatural, strange and in the uncanny valley between senselessness music and touchingly lyric, Banu’s chapbook is a series of phonic, visual, and sometimes literal translations of Mihai Eminescu’s poetry. Set in the present and in an oblique literary past, these poems are resonant, surprising, and inventive.

Margaret Christakos: Retreat Diary 2019 (above/ground press)

This suite of poems pulsates with the vibrant intelligence, music, tactility and sense of being-in-the-world that is characteristic Christakos. The lines are energized and self-aware. We are always/already writing/reading/poeming, retreating and advancing through language. And we communicate and wrestle and dance with communication and the problem/possibility of communication through (social) media, language, received notions of self, our culture and the world.  

some author activity: Braune, Brenza, Barwin, Etherin, Boyle + Rogal,

Sean Braune is interviewed over at Talking about strawberries all of the time, as is forthcoming author Andrew Brenza, where Gary Barwin also has some visual poems; Gary Barwin also writes on grant writing as part of his writer-in-residence blog via Sheridan College; Anthony Etherin has two new poems up at The Pi Review; Frances Boyle has three new poems up at Floodlight Editions; and Stan Rogal has a new poem up at Train : a poetry journal.

new from above/ground press: Thaumaturgy, by Anthony Etherin

Thaumaturgy
Anthony Etherin
$5

WINTER SOLSTICE



Anagrammed Lines

Winter Solstice:
Written close is
woe. Strict lines
wrestle in stoic
selections, writ
low in its secret.



Homonolic Lines

Winter Solstice:
Silver shimmers
needle darkness.
Gilded lanterns
gently splinter
leaden evenings....



Homovocalic Lines

Winter Solstice:
Nights echo, wide.
In the cosmic web,
lives collide.
In the low light, we
find the old rites.


Many of the poems in this collection are palindromes — either by letter, by pairs of letters, by triples of letters, or by word. One poem is an aelindrome, which means it palindromically parses its letters in accordance with a premeditated sequence — for example, the phrase “trap no rat” is aelindromic “in 123”, since its letters are parsed according to the associated palindromic sequence 12321: [t]1[ra]2[p no]3[ra]2[t]1.

Of the non-palindromic poems, some are composed of perfectly anagrammed lines. One piece (“Barely Time”) comprises three anagrammed haiku.

Some poems are minimalist sonnets — three Petrarchan, one Shakespearean and one Spenserian. The Shakespearean sonnet (a tetragram-sonnet) uses only four-letter words.

The other constraints are:

Triolet: A traditional form, of rhyme scheme ABaAabAB (where uppercase letters indicate repeated lines). Uniconsonantal Haiku: A haiku using only one consonant. Homonolic lines: Lines using words with the same letter-lengths. Homovocalic lines: Lines using the same vowels, in the same order, while varying consonants. Beaux Présents: Lines using only the letters found in their first word. Univocalic Haiku: A haiku using only one vowel. Beau Présent: A poem using only the letters found in its title.

Another poem uses only words that contain the consecutive letters “the”.

Cover: “An Incantation” by John Collier (1887).

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Anthony Etherin is an experimental formalist poet, a publisher, and a sometime musician. For more of his poetry, find him on Twitter, @Anthony_Etherin, and via anthonyetherin.wordpress.com

This is Etherin's second chapbook with above/ground press, after Danse Macabre (2018).

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Barwin, mclennan, Smallfield, Birchard + Etherin,

Gary Barwin has a new poem up at Burning House Press; rob mclennan was interviewed in Paul Brookes' Wombwell Rainbow Interviews series; Edward Smallfield has new poems posted at The LiT magazine; forthcoming author Guy Birchard is interviewed in the "12 or 20 questions: series; and Anthony Etherin has new work up at Burning House Press.

some author activity: Campos, Cortese, Earl, Mangold, fitzpatrick + Etherin,

forthcoming above/ground press author Isabel Sobral Campos has an essay up at my (small press) writing day; Franco Cortese has new poems and a statement as part of rob mclennan's Spotlight series; Amanda Earl has new work in talking about strawberries all of the time, as do Sarah Mangold and ryan fitzpatrick, where Anthony Etherin is also interviewed.

some author activity: Sweeney, Etherin, Schmaltz, Clayton + Eleftherion,

[Heather Sweeney launching her new above/ground press chapbook at Storyfort in Boise, Idaho as part of the Treefort festival] Anthony Etherin provides an essay in the my (small press) writing day series; further of Eric Schmaltz's commentaries have been appearing at Jacket2; forthcoming author Conyer Clayton has a poem up at Train : a poetry journal, as well as in the Tuesday poem series, over at the dusie blog; and Melissa Eleftherion has new work up in Dream Pop Journal #7.

new from above/ground press: Danse Macabre, by Anthony Etherin

Danse Macabre
Anthony Etherin
$5

THE FOG (Sonnet)

This fog: It spills
through light and ferns.
The dead return
to walk these hills;
their whispers chill
the air. As stern
as gods that yearn
for songs to fill
the nothingness,
their steps are out
of time. You sight
them, as they bless
the earth, but doubt
they have the right.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
December 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Some of the poems in this chapbook are palindromes by letter, while some consist of lines that are perfect anagrams of each other. Others are triolets or small sonnets. One is a palindrome by pairs of letters and one is a palindrome by word. The remaining poem is an aelindrome, whose unit of palindromism varies according to the repeated, premeditated sequence 1-2-3-4… (i.e. [M]1[el]2[ody]3[ablo-]4 reverses as [a blo]4[ody]3[el]2[m]1).

Cover: Woodcut from “Danse Macabre”, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1538.

Anthony Etherin is an experimental formalist poet. He founded Penteract Press (www.penteractpress.com) and he invented the aelindrome. For more of his poetry, find him on Twitter, @Anthony_Etherin, and via his website: anthonyetherin.wordpress.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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com