new from above/ground press: Words and Image / Entre mots et images, eds./dir. David O’Meara and/et Véronique Sylvain

Words and Image / Entre mots et images
eds./dir. David O’Meara and/et Véronique Sylvain
translations by/traductions de Myriam Legault-Beauregard
$10

including new poems in English (alongside French translation) and new poems in French (alongside English translation) by:

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm 

Stephen Brockwell

Margaret Michèle Cook 

Catherine Couture

Sonia-Sophie Courdeau

Leslie Roach

Bardia Sinaee

Michel Thérien

Introduction

We love the intersection of art practices and what is generated through dialogue. One expression of thought, when translated, via another medium, can transform into a third truth. In this way, overlap develops a further aura of meaning. Ekphrastic poetry—the written response to visual art—is one version of this vital collaboration. We asked eight Ottawa poets to look again at the rich, extraordinary permanent collection on display at the Ottawa Art Gallery to create a conversation of thought and feeling that the experience of art-viewing engenders. We hope you will join and enjoy it.

Introduction

Nous adorons les croisements entre les pratiques artistiques et ce que génèrent les dialogues. Une pensée exprimée, traduite dans une nouvelle discipline, peut se transformer en une troisième vérité. Ainsi, les recoupements font naître un nouvel horizon de significations. La poésie ekphrastique – une réponse écrite à l’art visuel – est une version de cette collaboration essentielle. Nous avons demandé à huit poètes d’Ottawa de jeter un nouveau regard sur la riche et extraordinaire collection permanente de la Galerie d’art d’Ottawa afin de créer une conversation entre les idées et les émotions que fait naître l’observation d’œuvres d’art. Nous espérons que vous vous joindrez à nous pour l’apprécier.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
produced for an event at the Ottawa Art Gallery, Saturday, January 24, 2026 at 5pm

Author biographies/Notices biographiques:

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, from the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, Saugeen Ojibway Nation, is a poet, spoken-word artist, Indigenous arts activist, assistant professor, and the publisher, art director, senior editor, and founder of Kegedonce Press. She is the recipient of the 2025 Ivy Award.

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, de la Première Nation Chippewas of Nawash Unceded et de la Nation Saugeen Ojibway, est poète, artiste de la parole, militante en arts autochtones et professeure adjointe, en plus de cumuler les rôles d’éditrice, de directrice artistique et de réviseure principale aux éditions Kegedonce Press, dont elle est aussi la fondatrice. Elle est la lauréate de l’Ivy Award 2025.

Stephen Brockwell is the author of seven collections of poetry, including All of Us Reticent, Here, Together (winner of the Archibald Lampman Award) and most recently, Immune to the Sacred (2022).

Stephen Brockwell est l’auteur de sept recueils de poèmes, dont All of Us Reticent, Here, Together (lauréat du Archibald Lampman Award) et, plus récemment, Immune to the Sacred (2022).

Margaret Michèle Cook a publié neuf livres de poésie aux Éditions du Nordir, de l’Interligne et Malaïka. Elle a aussi occupé la fonction de Poète lauréate de la Ville d’Ottawa entre 2019 et 2021. Son recueil Chronos à sa table de travail a remporté le Prix du livre d’Ottawa en 2009.

Margaret Michèle Cook is the author of nine poetry books published by the Éditions du Nordir, L’Interligne et Malaïka. She was also appointed Ottawa Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2021. Her collection Chronos à sa table de travail won the Ottawa Book Award in 2009.

Catherine Couture, originaire de Lévis et désormais installée à Ottawa, est traductrice de profession. Elle tisse ses poèmes de sororité et de maternité, à défaut de manier le fil et l’aiguille. Avant Ève est le premier de ses poèmes à avoir été publié.

Catherine Couture, originally from Lévis and now living in Ottawa, is a professional translator. For lack of threads and needles, she weaves her poems with sorority and maternity. Before Eve is her first published poem.

Originaire du nord de l’Ontario, Sonia-Sophie Courdeau a signé trois recueils de poésie dont À tire d’ailes (Prix Trillium 2012). En 2019, après avoir terminé une maîtrise en création, elle fonde sa propre entreprise afin d’aider des femmes à se transformer par les mots. Maman depuis 2023, elle travaille actuellement sur un quatrième recueil de poésie inspiré de ses défis émotionnels sur le chemin de la maternité.

Originally from northern Ontario, Sonia-Sophie Courdeau is the author of three poetry collections, including À tire d’ailes (Prix Trillium 2012). In 2019, after completing her master’s degree in creation, she started her own company to help women transform thanks to words. Becoming a mother in 2023, she now works on a fourth collection inspired by the emotional challenges she faces in her journey through maternity.

Leslie Roach is a poet, writer and lawyer based in Ottawa; she was born and raised in Montreal. Her debut collection of poetry, Finish this Sentence, was published by Mawenzi House and listed by CBC as a “Canadian Poetry Collection to Watch” and as a “Book to Read for Emancipation Day”.

Leslie Roach est une poète et avocate établie à Ottawa; elle est née et a grandi à Montréal. Son premier recueil de poèmes, Finish this Sentence a été publié chez Mawenzi House et a été recommandé par la CBC parmi les recueils de poésie canadienne à surveiller et les livres à lire en vue du Jour de l’émancipation.

Bardia Sinaee is the author of the poetry collection Intruder (2021) and a new chapbook, Flinch. He lives in Ottawa.

Bardia Sinaee est l’auteur du recueil de poèmes Intruder (2021) et d’un nouveau recueil court (chapbook) intitulé Flinch. Il vit à Ottawa. 

Né à Ottawa, Michel Thérien consacre son temps à l’écriture et à la promotion de la poésie. Plusieurs de ses livres ont été traduits et ont reçu divers prix et reconnaissances. Il a publié onze recueils et co-dirigé un collectif de poésie. 

Born in Ottawa, Michel Thérien devotes his time to writing and promoting poetry. Several of his books have been translated and have won various awards and marks of recognition. He is the author of eleven collections and the co-director of a collective book of poems.

David O’Meara is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently A Pretty Sight and Masses On Radar (Coach House Books, 2013, 2021). His novel, Chandelier, is published by Nightwood Editions (2024). He is the current Poet Laureate (Anglophone) of the City of Ottawa.

David O’Meara est l’auteur de cinq recueils de poésie, dont les plus récents sont A Pretty Sight et On Radar (Coach House Books, 2013 et 2021). Son roman, intitulé Chandelier, a été publié chez Nightwood Editions en 2024. Il est actuellement le poète officiel anglophone de la Ville d'Ottawa.

Véronique Sylvain habite à Ottawa, où elle travaille dans le milieu de l’édition. Ses poèmes ont paru dans plusieurs revues de creation littéraire, ainsi que des collectifs. Son premier Trillium, le Prix du livre d’Ottawa, en 2020, le prix Champlain et le Prix littéraire émergence Incueil, Premier quart (Prise de parole, 2019), lui a permis de remporter le Prix de poésie AAOF 2021. Son plus récent recueil de poésie, En terrain miné, est paru en septembre 2024 chez Prise de parole. Elle occupera, jusqu’à l’automne 2026, le poste de poète officielle francophone de la Ville d’Ottawa.

Véronique Sylvain lives in Ottawa, where she works in the publishing sector. Her poems appear in several literary journals and collectives. Thanks to her first collection, Premier quart (Prise de parole, 2019), she was rewarded with the Prix de poésie Trillium and the Prix du livre d'Ottawa, in 2020, as well as the prix Champlain and the Prix littéraire émergence AAOF, in 2021. Her most recent collection, En terrain miné, also published by Prise de parole, was launched in September 2024, She will be, until fall 2026, the Francophone Poet Laureate of the City of Ottawa.

Myriam Legault-Beauregard is a teacher, a literary translator, a poet and a spoken-word artist. She is also currently completing her PhD at the University of Ottawa. Her own works and shorter translations have been published in various magazines and journals, and her first poetry collection, Comme un myosotis, was launched in September 2023. Her first book-length translation, De plâtre et de platine (French version of Shashi Bhat’s The Most Precious Substance on Earth), was a finalist to the John-Glassco prize in the fall of 2024. She lives in Gatineau, Québec, with her partner and their two children. 

Myriam Legault-Beauregard enseigne et traduit des œuvres littéraires, en plus d’écrire et de déclamer sa propre poésie. Elle termine actuellement un doctorat à l’Université d’Ottawa. Ses créations et traductions ont été publiées dans diverses revues, et son premier recueil de poésie, Comme un myosotis, est paru en septembre 2023. Sa première traduction de roman, De plâtre et de platine (version française de The Most Precious Substance on Earth de Shashi Bhat) a été finaliste au prix John-Glassco en 2024. Elle vit à Gatineau avec son conjoint et leurs deux filles.

This is O’Meara and Sylvain’s second edited collaboration through above/ground press, after Verse on the Banks / Poèmes sur le rivage (2025).

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

Poetry at the Avant-Garde (Ottawa, June 1st): Jessi MacEachern, Stuart Ross, & William Vallières

Join us at the Avant-Garde Bar to see Stuart Ross (Cobourg), Jessi MacEachern (Montréal), and William Vallières (Montréal) read from their new poetry chapbooks from above/ground press.
Hosted by Bardia Sinaee.

Thursday, June 1, 2023 : Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa
Event starts at 7:30pm.
Admission is free.
Chapbooks will be available for sale.
See the Eventbrite link here

About the readers:

Jessi MacEachern is a poet who lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal where she teaches English literature. She is the author of A Number of Stunning Attacks. Her chapbook When a Folk, When a Sprawl is her second chapbook with above/ground press.

Stuart Ross, winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize, is the author of over twenty full-length books of poetry, fiction, and essays. Bird Snow on Hard Tracks is his third above/ground press chapbook. Stuart’s work has been translated into French, Norwegian, Slovene, Russian, Spanish, and Estonian. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

William Vallières is a Montreal poet. His work has appeared in The Walrus, Best Canadian Poetry, Event, Grain, and Plenitude. His first book of poetry, Versus (2019), is out with Véhicule Press. His chapbook, Poor Rutebeuf (2023), a translation of the French medieval poet Rutebeuf, is out now with above/ground press.

Event banner artwork by Barbara Caruso.

Conyer Clayton co-wins the Robin Blaser Poetry Award!

Congratulations to above/ground press author Conyer Clayton, who has co-won, along with Bardia Sinaee, this year's Robin Blaser Poetry Award! Her above/ground press title, Trust Only the Beasts in the Water (2019) is still, of course, very much available. As the press release reads:

ROBIN BLASER POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

In the generous spirit of the season, we’re happy to announce that this year’s Robin Blaser Poetry Award and $1000 prize will be shared by two contestants: Bardia Sinaee and Conyer Clayton.

BARDIA SINAEE was born in Tehran, Iran and currently lives in Toronto. His poems have appeared in magazines across Canada and in several editions of Best Canadian Poetry in English. His first collection, Intruder, is forthcoming from Anansi in spring 2021.

CONYER CLAYTON is an Ottawa based artist who aims to live with compassion, gratitude, and awe. Her most recent chapbooks are Trust Only the Beasts in the Water (above/ground press, 2019), / (post ghost press, 2019), Undergrowth (bird, buried press, 2018) and Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press, 2018). Her debut full length collection of poetry, We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite, is forthcoming Spring 2020 with Guernica Editions.

Look forward to reading the winning entries in our upcoming Spring Issue!

Once again, we’d like to thank all the contestants for their highly compelling entries, as well as our judge, Jen Currin for the time and care put into selecting our winners.

Bardia Sinaee reviews Ashley-Ezliabeth Best's Now You Have Many Legs to Stand On (2015) in Arc Poetry Magazine #80

Toronto poet Bardia Sinaee was good enough to review Ashley-Ezliabeth Best's Now You Have Many Legs to Stand On (2015) as part of a group chapbook review in the summer 2016 issue of Arc Poetry Magazine. Thanks so much! This is actually the second review of Best's chap, after Robert Anderson's review at Fjords Review. And of course, Best's wee chapbook is still very much available!

The review reads, in part:

Amid these various postures and gestures, Ottawa’s twenty-three-year-old above/ground press is refreshingly agnostic. The chapbooks’ design and typesetting are decidedly plain (think clipart and Word formatting), the binding consists of a single staple through the spine, and this material banality effectively foregrounds the unique characteristics of the writing. The poems in Now You Have Many Legs to Stand On, a recent above/ground release by Kingston-based poet Ashley-Elizabeth Best, stand out for their unsentimental takes on sex, emotional codependency, addiction and the body. Though her speakers don’t eschew affectation or misdirection, Best doesn’t use irony as a crutch. She can be arrestingly frank, as when she says, “I’m so tired of my whole life revolving / around my body,” but also reserved, wise and weary like in the Solie-esque travel poem “Stones and Their Stories”:

The long sweep of faces, eyes
grazing the dark of the bus.
Fashioning myself without sleep,
eyeing dynamite striations
in roadside rock, one feeling
nesting in another.

Unifying the various registers in which these poems speak are a few consistent (at times overly pervasive) motifs. Just about every poem describes the human body using aspects of the landscape or vice versa, so we get “the whitened roadways of scars,” “the bus full / of bodies felled in awkward rest,” “the charred chest of a tree,” “the fjord of my thighs” and “the harbour of my belly.” Whereas in “Stones and Their Stories,” the projection of one’s mindscape onto dynamite striations, or admissions like “I like to know things by placing / them in my mouth, sappy pine / bark, balled paper,” are understated and sensually interesting, the body-landscape motif is elsewhere more of a distraction. The chapbook’s title poem is riddled with too many of-constructions: “the slushy rhythm of the lake” is heard “in the shambling belly of conflicted currents,” a.k.a. “the brawling / waters of the lake,” out of which one pulls oneself onto “a muscled first of precambrian shield” which is also “the lake’s throat”; then there’s “the blood of light” and “grief chewing into the cartilage of the seasons.” The compounding and at times conflicting metaphors ultimately tax the reader so much that the poem’s expressions of fear, want and grief come off as superficial or, at the very least, unexplored.

some author activity: Earl, beaulieu, Barwin, Anstee + Smith,

Amanda Earl collaborates with Ikenna Onyegbula; derek beaulieu does a short write-up on a poem by bill bissett as part of the "Singular Encounters : : First Encounters" series over at Coldfront; Gary Barwin has a new poem posted up at h&; Bardia Sinaee wrote an essay on the work of Cameron Anstee for The Town Crier; and Pete Smith has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog.

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, June 14, 2013: Artelle, Worth, Dawson, Sinaee + Casteels,

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:

The Factory Reading Series
pre-small press book fair reading

with readings/launches by:

Steven Artelle (Ottawa)
Liz Worth (Toronto)
Kanina Dawson (Ottawa)
Bardia Sinaee (Toronto)
+ Michael e. Casteels (Kingston)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, June 14, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Steven Artelle's [pictured] writing has been published locally in Bywords Quarterly Journal, Ottawa Arts Review, and ottawater, and throughout Canada in journals including Vallum, FreeFall, and upcoming works in filling Station.  In 2013 his "Chinatown Zodiac" series will be part of a month-long exhibit during the Chinatown Remixed festival, and he will also have a chapbook, Four Hundred Rabbits, published by Angel House Press.  He recently completed a collection of poems entitled Metropantheon.

Liz Worth is an author and performance poet. Her first book, Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond (Bongo Beat/ECW Press) was the first to give an in-depth account of Toronto’s earliest punk scene. She has also written a poetry collection called Amphetamine Heart (Guernica Editions) and three chapbooks, Eleven: Eleven, Manifestations, and Arik’s Dream. She is also one-half of a band called Salt Circle. Check her out at www.lizworth.com

Kanina Dawsons’s work has appeared in a variety of Canadian literary publications, including Prism International, subTerrain, Descant, The Malahat Review and Event Magazine.  She has been awarded numerous prizes for creative non-fiction and was twice nominated for a National Magazine Award.  Kanina’s first book of poetry, Masham Means Everything, appeared this spring with Coteau Books. 

Bardia Sinaee lives in Toronto where he works at a bookstore. His poems have most recently appeared in The Puritan and The Walrus. He runs a micro-publishing outfit called Odourless Press.

Michael e. Casteels has self-published over a dozen chapbooks of poetry and artwork. His poetry has also appeared in: 529 (Proper Tales Press), Sterling Magazine, The Undergraduate Review, Incongruous Quarterly, In/Words That Not Forgotten (Hidden Brook Press) among others. He was nominated for the emerging artist award in the 2012 Premier's Awards for Excellence in the Arts. Currently he lives in Kingston, Ontario where he works as a Registered Massage Therapist and runs Puddles of Sky Press.

check here for information on the spring 2013 edition of the ottawa small press book fair, happening from noon to 5pm on Saturday, June 15 at the Jack Purcell Community Centre;