founded July 1993 : CELEBRATING THIRTY-PLUS YEARS OF CONTINUOUS ACTIVITY + MORE THAN 1400 PUBLICATIONS TO DATE! Ottawa-based poetry chapbook + broadside publisher; publisher of The Peter F. Yacht Club (a writer's group magazine) + Touch the Donkey (a small poetry magazine) + G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] + periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, as well as home of The Factory Reading Series (founded January 1993); edited/published/curated by rob mclennan
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.
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’smost 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.
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
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan, The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading
at Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way, Ottawa Saturday, December 27, 2025 doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
with readings from yacht club regulars and irregulars alike, including: Jennifer Baker, Frances Boyle, Conyer Clayton, David Currie, Michelle Desbarats, AJ Dolman, Amanda Earl, Claire Farley, Cara Goodwin, Chris Johnson, Margo LaPierre, IAN MARTIN, rob mclennan, Christine McNair, James Moran, Lee Parpart, Colin Quin, Mahaila Smith, Grant Wilkins and Chuqiao Yang (and possibly others,
A Crown of Omnivorous Teeth poems in honour of Chris Johnson and raccoons in general edied by Dessa Bayrock $5
with contributions by:
Cameron Anstee Manahil Bandukwala Dessa Bayrock Joshua Chris Bouchard Liam Burke Jake Byrne Conyer Clayton Ellen Chang-Richardson AJ Dolman nina jane drystek Amanda Earl Margo LaPierre rob mclennan James K. Moran Emilia Morgan David O'Meara Pearl Pirie and Monty Reid
There aren’t any proverbs about raccoons that I know of. But there should be. Here’s one, to start: where you see one raccoon, there are five more standing behind it.
Where you see one raccoon, there are ten more standing behind it.
Where you see one raccoon, there are surely eighteen more standing behind it.
This volume collects eighteen such raccoons — or, at least, impressions of raccoons. The thing these impressions have in common is the raccoon standing in the light, held endearingly by nineteen other beady eyes wedged into faces still firmly in the shadows. The raccoon standing in the light is, of course, Chris Johnson. (Editor’s Foreword, Dessa Bayrock)
published in Ottawa by above/ground press January 2024 a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
Kevin Spenst
(Vancouver)
Conyer Clayton (Ottawa) + rob mclennan
(Ottawa)
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan Thursday, June 29, 2023 Doors 7pm / Reading 730pm Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry 837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,
Kevin Spenst (he/him) [pictured] is the
author of Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, and Hearts Amok: a
Memoir in Verse (all with Anvil Press), and over a dozen chapbooks
including Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press), Upend (Frog Hollow
Press) and an upcoming holm with the Alfred Gustav Press. His most recent
writing has appeared in the anthologies Event 50: Collected Notes on Writing
and Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing. His book launch
during the pandemic was featured in a book about creative practices: The
Creative Instigator’s Handbook. He teaches creative writing at Vancouver
Community College and Simon Fraser University and he lives in Vancouver on
unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory.
Conyer Claytonis an
award-winning writer, editor, and musician whose multi-genre work often
explores grief, disability, the climate crisis, and gender-based violence
through a surrealist lens. They are the author of But the sun, and the
ships, and the fish, and the waves. (Finalist for the Pat Lowther Award and
Raymond Souster Award), We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (Winner of the
2021 Ottawa Book Award), and many solo and collaborative chapbooks. They are
the Nonfiction Editor for untethered magazine, a Poetry Editor for
Augur, and a member of VII; an Ottawa-based poetry collective.
The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry,
fiction and non-fiction, rob mclennan’s most recent titles include the
poetry collections the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press,
2022) and World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), the chapbook The Alta Vista
Improvements (above/ground press, 2023), and a suite of pandemic essays, essays
in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022). He spent the 2007-8
academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta,
and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at
robmclennan.blogspot.com
published in Ottawa by above/ground press January 2023 as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
Kimberly Quiogue Andrews is a poet and literary critic. She is the author of A
Brief History of Fruit, winner of the Akron Prize for Poetry from the
University of Akron Press, and BETWEEN, winner of the New Women’s Voices
Chapbook Prize from Finishing Line Press. She teaches creative writing and
American literature at the University of Ottawa, and you can find her on Twitter
at @kqandrews.
Susan J. Atkinson : “Reading Palms,” “The Dining Room Poem by another Poet”
and “Interpreting Rothko”
Susan J. Atkinson’spoems have won a number of awards, most recently
first prize in the 2019 National Capital Writers Contest and chosen as a
Notable Mention in the 2020 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse. She has new work
in Grain Magazine and The Queen’s Quarterly. Her first full-length
collection, The Marta Poems was published by Silver Bow Publishing
in 2020 and her chapbook The Birthday Party, The Mariachi Player and
The Tourist came out in Spring 2021 with Catkin Press. Visit www.susanjatkinson.com
for more information.
Frances Boyle : “The whole tall world” and “Abbey”
Frances Boyle is the author of two poetry books, most recently This
White Nest (2019). She has also written Tower, a Rapunzel-infused
novella (2018), and Seeking Shade, a short story collection (2020) which
was a first-place winner of the Miramichi Reader’s Very Best! Awards, and a
finalist for the Danuta Gleed Award and the ReLit Award. Her writing has been
selected for the Best Canadian Poetry series, nominated for the Pushcart
Prize and Best of the Net, and published throughout North America and
internationally. Frances’s third book of poetry is forthcoming in fall 2022
with Frontenac House Press. www.francesboyle.com
Jason Christie : “Slow death”
Jason Christielives and writes in Ottawa. He is the author of Canada
Post (Invisible), i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor
(Insomniac), and Cursed Objects (Coach House). His most recent chapbooks
are: Bridge and Burn (above / ground) and Heavy Metal Litany
(Model press). He is looking for a home for a new manuscript of poetry he wrote
with the help of several Python scripts.
Conyer Clayton : “Family Dinner” and “Intruder,” both from But the
sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves (Spring 2022, A Feed Dog
Book by Anvil Press).
Conyer Clayton is a writer, musician, editor, and gymnastics coach
living on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe land. Her debut collection, We Shed
Our Skin Like Dynamite (Guernica Editions, 2020), won an Ottawa Book Award
and was a Relit Award finalist. She's released 2 albums and many chapbooks;
recently, Towers (Collusion Books, 2021) by VII, of which she is a
member, and Sprawl (Collusion Books, 2020) written with Manahil
Bandukwala, shortlisted for the bpNichol Award. Her second book, But the sun,
and the ships, and the fish, and the waves (A Feed Dog Book, Anvil Press)
is forthcoming Spring 2022.
Laurie Anne Fuhr : “applicable skills of the military brat #1” and “applicable
skills of the military brat #2,” from night flying (Frontenac House
2018).
Laurie Anne Fuhr, ex-Ottawan, current Calgarian, is author of night
flying (Frontenac House 2018), which was shortlisted for the Robert
Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry 2016 in ms form. Fuhr had work in several
anthologies in 2021, including Uncommon Grounds: poems by the Espresso Poetry
Collective (epcpress 2021); Wonder/Shift 40th Anniversary Anthology
(AWCS Press 2021); and The Stroll of Poets Anthology (2021), and had a
poem on a tall can with Blindman Brewing's Session Stories series (ed. Jason
Lee Norman). Her poem mixed media was shortlisted in the Freefall Magazine
poetry contest 2020 (Judge Gary Barwin). Her work has been published in an
above/ground chapbook and in many periodicals like This Magazine, Journal
of Literature and Aesthetics (India), Bywords, and Prairie Journal.
Fuhr is a poetry instructor with alexandrawriters.org; its poetry workshops are
now open to all on Zoom.
natalie hanna : “keep moving / keep sleeping” and “to learn of
making”
natalie hanna is a queer, disabled, feminist, Middle Eastern,
Ottawa-born lawyer. She runs battleaxe press, and has authored thirteen
chapbooks, including three titles with above/ground press, Baseline Press
(2020), and collaboratively with Liam Burke, machine dreams, from Collusion
Books (2021). She is working on her first full length poetry collection. Her poetry,
interviews, and commentary have been published in Canada and the U.S. Learn
more: https://nhannawriting.wordpress.com.
Robert Hogg : “The Poem that Starts in the Night”
Robert Hogg was born in Edmonton, Alberta, grew up in the Cariboo
and Fraser Valley in British Columbia, and attended UBC during the early
Sixties where he was associated with the Vancouver TISH poets, co-edited
MOTION - a prose newsletter, and graduated with a BA in English and
Creative Writing. His books include: The Connexions, Berkeley: Oyez,
1966; Standing Back, Toronto: Coach House, 1972; Of Light,
Toronto: Coach House, 1978; Heat Lightning, Windsor: Black Moss, 1986; There
Is No Falling, Toronto: ECW,1993; and as editor, An English Canadian
Poetics, The Confederation Poets – Vol. 1, Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2009. He
recently published several chapbooks: from LAMENTATIONS, Ottawa: above/ground,
2016; two Cariboo poems, Ranch Days – The McIntosh from hawk/weed press
in Kemptville, ON; Ranch Days—for Ed Dorn from battleaxe press (Ottawa
2019); A Quiet Affair – Vancouver ’63 (Trainwreck, May 2021); and in
August 2021 a chapbook titled From Each Forthcoming (above/ground). In
December 2021, a chapbook will be released from Hogwallow Press, called The
Red Menace, and another from Apt 9 Press in Ottawa, called Apothegms.
Margo LaPierre : “A Video of You, Laughing” (first published in Mineral
Lit Mag), “Hysterosonogram” (forthcoming 2022 in Sable Books’ disability
anthology The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet) and “Air Show” (first
published in Train Journal)
Margo LaPierre is a freelance editor and author of Washing Off
the Raccoon Eyes (Guernica Editions, 2017). She serves as newsletter editor
of Arc Poetry Magazine and is a member of poetry collective VII. She is
the winner of the 2021 Room Poetry Contest and the 2020 subTerrain
Lush Triumphant Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2021 Fiddlehead
Creative Nonfiction Contest. She is completing her MFA in Creative Writing at
UBC. Find her on Twitter @margolapierre.
Gil McElroy is reading three new poems from his ongoing project, The Julian Days.
Gil McElroy is a poet currently living in Colborne, Ontario.
rob mclennan : “Autobiography of green,” “Coordinates” and “Burning
the dead grass”
Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious
capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home
full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of
more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most
recent poetry title, the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press,
2022), is now available for pre-order. In spring 2020, he won ‘best pandemic
beard’ from Coach House Books via Twitter, of which he is extremely proud (and
mentions constantly). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as
writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.
Christine McNair : “Déjà Entendu” and “Déjà vu”
Christine McNair has published two books of poetry with Bookhug – Conflict
(2012) and Charm (2017). Her most recent manuscript is a hybrid
non-fiction poetry manuscript focused on preeclampsia, illness, and disability.
She works as a book doctor in Ottawa.Also
– she recorded this last year for Canthius but it may have been lost in
the ether, much like she was lost in the Christmas tree.
Pearl Pirie : “Daily you detail weather” & “time scales
mountains” are from the tentatively titled, “Well-Behaved Thistle.” If you’re a
potential publisher, ask for it by name.
Pearl Pirie’s fourth poetry collection is footlights (Radiant
Press, 2020). rain’s small gestures (Apt 9 Press, fall 2021) is
minimalist poems. Mudflaps for Short Dogs is out from Trainwreck Press
(July 2021). Interact with her at Instagram or Patreon at Pearlpiriepoet.
Stuart Ross : “A Stephen Crane Christmas,” “Sixty-Two” and “Razovsky
On The Volga”
Stuart Rossis a writer, editor, and writing teacher, the author
of 20 books of fiction, poetry, and essays, and countless chapbooks and ephemera.
He received the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize and the 2021 James Tate Poetry
Prize. Stuart’s work has been translated into Nynorsk, French, Spanish, Estonian,
and Russian. His most recent book is 70 Kippers, written with his
dearest friend, the late Ottawa poet Michael Dennis. Stuart’s hybrid poem/essay
The Book Of Grief And Hamburgers, dedicated to Michael, comes out this
spring from ECW Press. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.
Renée Sarojini Saklikar : from the Perimeter sequence in Bramah and The Beggar
Boy
Renée Sarojini Saklikar is a poet and lawyer who lives in Vancouver on the unceded
traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples. She is the author of four books,
including the ground-breaking poetry book, children of air india, about
the bombing of Air India Flight 182 which won the Canadian Authors Association
Poetry Prize and is the co-author, with Dr. Mark Winston, of the poetry and
essay collection, Listening to the Bees, winner of the 2019 Gold Medal
Independent Publishers Book Award, Environment/Ecology. She is currently
working on Book 2 of the THOT J BAP series, an epic fantasy in verse.
This poem is from the
Perimeter sequence in my epic fantasy in verse, Bramah and The Beggar Boy
(Nightwood Editions, 2021).
An early version of this poem,
one of the first in my long poem series, https://thotjbap.com/, first appeared in
a beautiful hand made chapbook by the late Marthe Reed, to whom I was introduced
by rob mclennan at the Factory Reading Series in Ottawa.
Other poems from the sequence
also appeared in Kathryn Mockler’s The Rusty Toque.
With gratitude for these, past
and present, who support/supported long form poetry.
D.S. Stymeist : Big Ride: Passage 1” and “Tonic.”
D.S. Stymeist’s debut collection, The Bone Weir, was published
by Frontenac in 2016 and was a finalist for the Canadian Author’s Association
Award for Poetry. He continues to publish widely in both academic and literary magazines.
Alongside fending off Crohn’s disease, he teaches creative writing and crime
fiction at Carleton University. He’s the former president of VERSe Ottawa,
which organizes VERSeFest, Ottawa’s international poetry festival.
On special assignment: Cameron
Anstee, Stephen Brockwell, jwcurry, Anita Dolman, Amanda Earl, Lea Graham, Marilyn
Irwin, Chris Johnson, Janice Tokar, Roland Prevost, Sandra Ridley and Chris Turnbull.
%20-%20Digital%20Poster%20(insta)%20(1)%20(1)%20(1).png)
