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Here are some brief reviews of my favorite titles issued by Above/Ground Press during the year 2025. While I was not asked to write any of these reviews, I will state for the purpose of full disclosure that I was published by this press in 2025 and will appear as a co-author of another title in 2026.
THE TEMPORARY SPACE OF A PLACENTA by Mandy Sandhu
This is a wonderful collection. Sandhu’s poems are characterized by their concision, allusiveness, a leaping of imagery and wit. The voice behind the poetry suggests great intelligence and familiarity with various poetic traditions. Reading Sandhu’s poems, I thought of Ted Berrigan’s Sonnets. Then reading her bio at the back of the chapbook I was pleased to note Sandhu listed Berrigan as influence. A superb collection.
EL REY MURCIÉLAGO THE BAT KING by
Yaxkin Melchy Ramos [tr. Ryan Greene]
This work appears to combine various forms and traditions – Surrealism, Concrete (Visual) Poetry, Mythology, Science Fiction – and doubtless others – into a contemporary hybrid that veers between poetry and prose. If you ask your poetry to break down barriers, then this is a chapbook you’ll find rewarding. An added felicity: it is bilingual so you can compare English translation to Spanish original. Experimental in the best sense.
SPAMTOUM by Noah Berlatsky
This title contains one long poem of 95 stanzas of four-lines each, the titular “Spamtoum”, and a final poem “Hi Noah”. ‘Spamtoum’ with its repeating lines expands the pantoum form. Because I enjoy form, I set out to trace the pattern, then gave up at a certain point because it dawned on me the pattern itself was incidental to the feverish language play taking place before me. Much like John Ashbery’s sestina “Farm Implements and Rutagagas in a Landscape”, Berlatsky’s unfurling of the pantoum is intended to be gloriously screwball. Spam is where language goes to die. Here it is rescued, given oxygen, and a second chance. If you enjoy poetry that delights in language, then “Spamtoum” is ideal reading.
THE LAST MAN by Ben Ladouceur
Ben Ladouceur writes elegant, well-crafted poems. His poetic imagination is considerable; his evident care with line and stanza enviable. Thus it is impossible for me to read a poem by Ladouceur and not be impressed by both form and content, as if those aspects can ever be fully separated, because his writing achieves its results with apparent effortlessness. He is a poet in full control of his gifts for the poetic art. (Color me envious.) A brilliant collection.
MORE OF HOW TO READ THE BIBLE by J-T Kelly
Kelly writes poems that deal with his religious life, much like Franz Wright did. And like Wright, Kelly often deals with the struggle to maintain it in today’s world. Like the best love poetry, religious poetry appeals to us because it yearns to go beyond the material world toward a transcendent one. A highlight for me is Kelly’s catalog of sacred names that ends on a culminating moment; another favorite is the prose poem “Morning Exercise”, which has the profound bearing of a meditation one might encounter, say, in the journals of Thomas Merton. A serious and fine example of the art.
cuba A book by Monty Reid (twentieth anniversary edition)
This reissue contains a brief essay by Monty Reid that describers the circumstances that prompted the writing of the original poem. Reid wrote cuba A book after a period of not-writing, and it impresses by how assured it feels. None of that hesitancy or searching around for line or voice: from the start it is all there. I suppose that really shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. For those familiar with Reid’s work and those who would like a good place to start: recommended.
AND THEN THE GENTILE LIT THE CANDLES by Stuart Ross
Stuart Ross is a poet who also writes a great deal of fiction. He’s a wonderful fiction writer. This small collection reminds me at times of Brautigan, at times of early Raymond Carver. (The Carver under the influence of Lish.) In his economy of language, Ross calls to mind another great Canadian short story writer: Norman Levine. The title story is a fine one; however, my personal favorite is “Meredith and Craig Sit in Their Kitchen and Play Stringed Instruments.” In that story you get an ending with a palpable sense of what music critic Greil Marcus called ‘that old weird America’ – a voice haunted, distant, haunting. An excellent collection.
JUST A MINUTE, MOON’S TOO LOUD by Michael Sikkema
A concise poetry that pays homage to the natural world, the world encountered at the edge of a hike or in a moment of jeweled awareness. Sikkema surely enjoys the ancient Chinese masters, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t enjoy writers such as Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry. There’s humor here too, light, whimsical, lovely high seeming, as this complete poem demonstrates:
fav crow
ate my
rear view
When brevity is desired, let these poems answer the need.
DAILY SELF-PORTRAIT VALENTINE by Laynie Browne
This chapbook, at first glance, is composed of lyrics that resemble those of Emily Dickinson. That is a misleading impression to have. As Browne tells us in an author’s note these poems grew out of “a year-long durational project” in which she “made a self-portrait every day for one year.” The resulting collection enacts a quest, one where memory accompanies Browne, as the outside world of obligation seems to call to the poet in the midst of her purposeful concentrations. These self-portraits are by necessity impressionistic. It is a collection that usefully demonstrates how poetry can come out of a daily practice.
These are other fine titles can be found here https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com
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