new from above/ground press: Planting Seeds : Fletcher Garden Poems, ed. David O’Meara

Planting Seeds : Fletcher Garden Poems
edited by David O’Meara
$6

featuring new poems by:

Laurie Koensgen
Ellen Chang-Richardson 
Anita Lahey
Conyer Clayton 
Sneha Madhavan-Reese
David Stymeist
David O’Meara
Blaine Marchand

Introduction
David O’Meara,
Poet Laureate (anglophone) of the City of Ottawa (2024-2027)

Living in an urban area, it is often easy to forget the rich natural habitat that surrounds us. Thankfully, in the Ottawa region, there are numerous opportunities for “appreciation, preservation, and conservation of Canada’s natural heritage,” a listed objective of the Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club. In late April, eight local poets took a ramble with Sandy Garland, a volunteer and educator at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden / Bill Holland Trail, and a passionate advocate for conservation, to appreciate and respond to the flora and fauna of this unique and valuable site within the city. The poets returned, walked, sat, imagined, researched, and wrote. The result is this chapbook, which shapes an informal guide to a leisurely walk on the provided paths. I encourage you to take it to the Bill Holland Trail, or any local trail, and read, look, and listen. Wear a hat and long pants. Bring a water bottle. And visit the Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club website, a valuable resource, for more information on how to create wildlife-friendly habitat and gardens on urban and rural properties: https://ofnc.ca/programs/fletcher-wildlife-garden

Thank you first of all to Sandy Garland, volunteer-extraordinaire, who generously donated her time, energy, enthusiasm, and endless knowledge to the poets and audience during our tour of the trails and garden. Thanks to the support of rob mclennan for work on this chapbook, Allison Armstrong for media and publicity, Frances Boyle and Nik Ives-Allison. Thanks to Edward Farnworth and Stuart Tomlinson at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Thanks to Leigh Thorpe and Jane’s Walk. Many thanks to the City of Ottawa for support through the Ottawa Poet Laureate program, and to all the participating poets for their thoughtfulness and creativity.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
produced for the event PLANTING SEEDS: NATURE POETRY ON THE TRAIL, June 27, 2026, Fletcher Wildlife Garden, Prince of Wales Drive, Ottawa

author biographies:

Ellen Chang-Richardson is an award-winning poet, hybrid genre writer, judicial assistant, editor, community organizer, and author of Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024). 

Conyer Clayton is a queer writer, editor, and bookseller from Louisville, Kentucky living in Ottawa. Their third full-length collection of poetry, the lake-shaped excuse, is forthcoming in October 2026 with Buckrider Books, Wolsak and Wynn. 

Laurie Koensgen’s poetry has appeared internationally in more than 100 journals, anthologies and online magazines. Her fourth chapbook, this clingstone love, is with Pinhole Poetry Press. 

Anita Lahey loves wandering Ottawa’s pockets of urban wild. Her latest poetry collection is While Supplies Last. Her memoir, The Last Goldfish: A True Tale of Friendship, was an Ottawa Book Award finalist.

Sneha Madhavan-Reese is the author of two poetry collections, Observing the Moon and Elementary Particles. Originally from Michigan, she has lived in Ottawa since 2009.

Blaine Marchand has been active in the literary scene in Ottawa for over 50 years. A chapbook, Anthems for Dead Youth, will be published this November by Big Pond Rumours. He has published seven books and two chapbooks of poetry.

David O'Meara is the author of five collections of poetry and a novel, Chandelier. He is currently the English-language Poet Laureate for the City of Ottawa.

DS Stymeist’s most recent collection, Cluster Flux (Frontenac Press) was short-listed for the Archibald Lampman Poetry Award. Alongside living with chronic disease (Crohn’s), he currently teaches creative writing at Carleton University.

This is David O'Meara’s third edited title through above/ground press, all part of his tenure as Ottawa’s English-language Poet Laureate, following Verse on the Banks / Poèmes sur le rivage (2025) and Words and Image / Entre mots et images (2026), both of which were co-edited by Ottawa's French-language Poet Laureate, Véronique Sylvain, with translations by Myriam Legault-Beauregard.

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

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, November 25, 2016: Strimas, Di Cicco, Brockwell, Fiszer + Marchand,

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

The Factory Reading Series
pre-small press book fair reading
featuring readings by:

Meagan Strimas (Toronto)
Pier Giorgio Di Cicco (Toronto)
Stephen Brockwell (Ottawa)
Doris Fiszer (Ottawa)
+ Blaine Marchand (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, November 25, 2016;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

[And don’t forget the ottawa small press book fair, held the following day at the Jack Purcell Community Centre]

Meaghan Strimas [pictured] is the author of three poetry collections, Junkman’s Daughter, A Good Time Had By All and Yes or Nope, and the editor of The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwan. She grew up in Owen Sound, Ontario, and lives in Toronto, where she is a professor in the Department of English at Humber College and the managing editor of the Humber Literary Review.

Pier Giorgio Di Cicco is the author of twenty-two volumes of poetry, most recently My Life Without Me, and a book of manifestos on creative cities called Municipal Mind. He has lectured widely in the domain of creative economies throughout N. America and Europe and is the recipient of a Canadian Urban Institute Award for his thesis of civic spirit as the underpinning of prosperous modern cities. He is a Roman Catholic priest, a jazz trumpeter, and principal of the urban consultancy, “Municipal Mind” (municipalmind.com). He is presently the public space liaison between the stakeholders of the Toronto waterfront land and the City of Toronto. He was the Poet Laureate of the City of Toronto between 2004 and 2009.

Stephen Brockwell cut his writing teeth in the ’80s in Montreal, appearing on French and English CBC Radio and in the anthologies Cross/cut: Contemporary English Quebec Poetry and The Insecurity of Art (both Véhicule Press, 1982). George Woodcock described Brockwell’s first book, The Wire in Fences, as having an “extraordinary range of empathies and perceptions.” Harold Bloom wrote that Brockwell’s second book, Cometology, “held rare and authentic promise.” Fruitfly Geographic won the Archibald Lampman award for best book of poetry in Ottawa in 2005. Brockwell currently operates a small IT consulting company from the 7th floor of the Chateau Laurier and lives in a house perpetually under construction. His most recent poetry title is All of Us Reticent, Here, Together, published by Mansfield Press.

Doris Fiszer is a member of Ruby Tuesday’s writing group. Her poetry has appeared in Bywords Quarterly Journal, bywords.ca and other local publications. Her chapbook The Binders won the 2016 Tree Chapbook Award and was published by Tree Press. The poems in the chapbook were inspired by her parents’ experiences in Nazi camps during world War 11 and are part of a larger collection she is currently working on. 

Blaine Marchand's poetry and prose has appeared in magazines across Canada and in the US. He has won several prizes for his writing, including 2nd Prize in the 1990 National Poetry Contest and the Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry for his book A Garden Enclosed. His two most recent books, Aperture and The Craving of Knives were short-listed for the Archibald Lampman Award in 2009 and 2010. He has six books of poetry published, a children's novel and a work of non-fiction.