some author activity: Earl, Robertson, Flemmer, Dolman, Anstee + Ladouceur,

Amanda Earl has begun blogging "Lisa Robertson, a reading diary"; Lisa Robertson has a poem up at Poets.org; Amanda Earl has a short essay on the prose poem up at Flat Singles Press; Kyle Flemmer has some new work up at h&; Anita Dolman has a new poem up at Crap Orgasm; and Cameron Anstee is interviewed on his Apt. 9 Press by Ben Ladouceur over at Open Book.

the above/ground press 20th anniversary reading / launch / party! : a (small) report,

I'm still wiped out from the above/ground press 20th anniversary reading / launch / party held at The Mercury Lounge on August 23, with readings and launches by Marthe Reed, Gary Barwin, Marcus McCann, Wanda O'Connor and Monty Reid. Pearl Pirie was good enough to post a report on the event, as well as various photos on her flickr account. We had a packed house on the second floor "lounge level" of The Mercury Lounge, with a crowd of some sixty people or more, with five readers eacch reading under sparkly lights. The crowd included various above/ground press authors, numerous other writers and friends of the press including Amanda Earl, Rhonda Douglas, Rod Pederson, Vivian Vavassis, Steven Artelle, Jason Camlot, Cameron Anstee, Alexander Monker, Stephen Brockwell, Gwendolyn Guth, Frances Boyle, Charles Earl, Pearl Pirie, Jeff Blackman, Marilyn Irwin, JM Francheteau, Roland Prevost, Janice Tokar, Craig Calhoun, Brian Pirie, Mark Schaan and tons of others. Even my father-in-law was there, with his wife. Amazing! Thanks so much to the readers, the entire audience, and Sara Ainslie of The Mercury Lounge for their generous support.

Sometimes I really do find it amazing that I've managed to keep the press going for as long as I have, twenty continuous years of publishing. The other day, I even realized I'm most likely about five or six publications away from having produced seven hundred items through above/ground press. I've been amazed over the years at the wealth of writing and writers I've been fortunate enough to publish through the press, and the enormous support that I've received, both locally and far, far beyond.

Christine spent a couple of days beforehand building leather-bound cases for above/ground press "poem" broadsides, and she ended up making a "fetish object" of thirty "poem" broadsheets in a numbered edition of ten copies. Absolutely beautiful! All but two were immediately snapped up, and we think we're holding those back for something to come, soon (watch for announcements). Aslo, Cameron Anstee was good enough to produce a chapbook through Apt. 9 Press of the interview he spent six weeks or so conducting with me on the history of the press. Copies were available at the anniversary reading, and can now be ordered directly from him (while supplies last, obviously).

Local favourite Marcus McCann returned to town to launch his new above/ground press chapbook, constructed as an essay-through-poems on the work of Montreal poet David McGimpsey. Did I mention how much we miss him since he left for Toronto and Law School?

American poet Marthe Reed came to Ottawa to do her first Canadian reading, and read from a chapbook produced from a much larger work-in-progress. Now that she's recently moved with her family from Lafayette, Louisiana to New York State, hopefully this will simply be the first of many Canadian readings. 

And can you imagine, Christine even ordered a cake? It isn't a birthday party without a cake. (I do have the most amazing wife.)

Monty Reid launched a sequence of poems, and brought a calming, meditative effect to the evening. It's been interesting to see that most of Monty's published work over the past few years have been stretched-out, meditative sequences. It's long been a thread of Reid''s work, but it seems to be far more prominent now.

It might have taken nearly a decade of soliciting, but it was well worth the wait to be able to produce a chapbook by Wanda O'Connor, long moved from Ottawa to Montreal. This is easily the strongest work I've seen from her so far, and I'm excited to see what she releases next. She was also kind enough to present me with a gift-bag of Concordia-related items, and a t-shirt she had made for me, using the photo Brian Pirie took of an above/ground press "poem" broadside.

The last of the five readers, Gary Barwin, grew up in Ottawa (he attended the same high school as actress Sandra Oh and my daughter Kate, although at very different times), and always brings a variety of Barwi (what his father, Dr. Barwin and I have agreed is the plural of "Barwin") to any event, and this event was no different. The only regret is that Gary doesn't manage to come visit us more often.

Apt 613: Alejandro Bustos on above/ground press' twentieth anniversary,

Over at Apt 613, Alejandro Bustos was good enough to write an article on the above/ground press twentieth anniversary, "Celebrating 20 years of poetry with above/ground press," with input from Marthe Reed, Gary Barwin, Monty Reid and Marcus McCann, as well as a mention of Cameron Anstee and Apt 9 Press. Thanks, Alejandro! Here's hoping we even see twenty more...

new from APT. 9 PRESS; I simply began: above/ground press at 20 [an interview with rob mclennan]

above/ground press author (and friend of the press) Cameron Anstee spent a few weeks working on an interview with me for the upcoming above/ground press 20th anniversary, now available (for pre-order) as a chapbook through his own small press, Apt. 9!

The publication sees official launch on Friday, August 23, 2013 at The Mercury Lounge (second floor lounge) as part of the 20th anniversary above/ground press reading/launch/party! I'm still waiting on a final confirmation before announcing, so watch this space over the next little bit for the announcement of readers and new publications!

Here's the announcement Anstee posted today:

This month, Apt. 9 Press is thrilled to be publishing an extended interview with rob mclennan: I simply began: above/ground press at 20. rob’s above/ground press is celebrating itstwentieth anniversary in August 2013. For any small press activity, this would be a stunning accomplishment. In Ottawa, a city that hasn’t always been as active as some others in the Canadian landscape, it takes on greater significance. Apt. 9, so often concerned with its Ottawa-specific context, could not let this anniversary go by without doing something to mark the occasion. So, we set up with rob over email for eight weeks and asked him about the origins of the press, what was happening in Ottawa when he got going, what his ambitions were, what they’ve become, what he’s proud of and what he regrets, how many staplers he’s gone through, how he’s funded the entire operation for twenty years, the material aesthetics of what he does, and an awful lot more.

The chapbook will be ready and available on Friday, August 23 at the above/ground press twentieth anniversary reading at The Mercury Lounge. rob is still lining up his readers, but from what we’ve heard so far you won’t want to miss it. We’ll post all the details here as they emerge.

Congratulations, rob, and congratulations, above/ground press! Hey, you can almost drink in the US.

William Hawkins inducted into the VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour

Ottawa poet and above/ground press author William Hawkins is one of the first two inductees (along with Greg "Ritalin" Frankson) in the VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour, to be held towards the end of this year's third annual VERSeFest, on March 17.

above/ground press published William Hawkins' poetry chapbook the black prince of bank street (2007) as part of our fourteenth anniversary reading/launch, and new poems have appeared in various issues of The Peter F Yacht Club, including #4 and #11.

Other items have appeared with Cameron Anstee's Apt. 9 Press; he writes his own note on Hawkins, here.

Ryan Pratt's Recent Reads: Ottawa's Poets & Presses

Ottawa writer and blogger Ryan Pratt posted a nice note on his blog yesterday, in response to a package of chapbooks I handed him at a recent talk Pearl Pirie and I did for the OIW. Thanks, Ryan! He's also recently become one of the (ir)regular contributors to the ongoing ottawa poetry newsletter blog, so hopefully we might see a bunch more write-ups by him in the future. See the original post here.

Any writer who has spent time in Ottawa can attest to its reputation for literary excellence. For my part, shopping at the biannual Small Press Book Fair and attending readings around town have resulted in the cozy “local section” of my home library. Among the manifold stapled spines that jut out in all colours and sizes, I’ve collected publications from Bywords (their Quarterly Journals plus two chapbooks from John Newlove Poetry Award winners), Apt. 9 Press, AngelHouse Press and above/ground press.

The two titles I’d purchased from above/ground, a press created and operated by rob mclennan, were totally unique to one another: Green Wind, by Ken Norris, details the foreign and domestic sides of a trip abroad with straightforward yet poetic prose, whereas mclennan’s own 16 Yonge presents a long-form poem that analyzes Toronto’s concrete edge at the docks.

On account of someone’s generosity and kindness, I’ve wandered into a deluge of above/ground press chapbooks to further clutter my reading nook. There’s Stephen Brockwell’s Excerpts from Impossible Books, The Crawdad Cantos, a compilation that should be of particular interest given that Stephen will be hosting a writing workshop in Ottawa July 7th, and several of rob mclennan’s recent titles to choose from. I’m taking them in one at a time but it doesn’t help when Goldfish: studies in fine thread, a kaleidoscopic look at happenstances that reveal a relationship beyond the fish tank, rewards constant revisiting.

Besides above/ground, I’ve been introduced to a smattering of other authors and presses: Monty Reid’s Contributor’s Notes (Gaspereau Press), some unarmed chapbooks (journal #64: Unwanted Unarmed includes a crowd of wonderful writers), and poems working in conjunction with the School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (featuring Sandra Ridley and Pearl Pirie, among others).

Needless to say, I haven’t had the opportunity to dive into most of these works with the attention they deserve, but what I’ve read so far, even in passing, warrants mention. Support these chapbook presses by seeking out their treasures online or by checking out your local Small Press Book Fair (I know Ottawa’s Spring Edition will be happening June 30th – details here).