some author activity: mclennan, Iijima, Boyle, Spinosa + Jenks,

rob mclennan and Brenda Iijima have new work in Volume 6 of Work and Days; Frances Boyle has a new poem up at Bywords.ca; Dani Spinosa has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Tom Jenks also has new work in the "Tuesday poem" series; and rob mclennan is interviewed by Katie Ebbitt for Cleveland Review of Books, and by Jamie Tennant over at his clever podcast.

some author activity: Archer, Barwin, Spinosa, Dachsel, Betts, MacEachern + Vitkauskas,

Sacha Archer has some visual work up at Arnold McBay's mOvement, as does Gary Barwin, once or twice, and Dani Spinosa; Marita Dachsel has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Gregory Betts is interviewed at The Ethically Immoral Podcast; Jessi MacEachern is featured in the Canadian Poets Series over at Peripety and/or Tronies; and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

new from above/ground press: A Mean, Mean Thirst, by Dani Spinosa

A Mean, Mean Thirst
poems for my friends and their books
Dani Spinosa
$5

like--
  most of us
    never even
      o-
         penned it
      quietude letting us
    rest finally
   sleep as if being awake was
    trivial as the closed captions reading
     unalive in some
      video
    we’ve both seen
  x times on
youtube or else me explaining
   zaddy
     after one or several
        beers && ok
     ciders for stephen && vodka sodas for
   dani && kate &&
      each of us wandering wondering what it’s been
         for, these
      gifts we carry
         here again and again
            in case in
                           jest in
                                    kin

(from "sequence dress," for andy weaver)

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
December 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

digital illustrations by the author

Dani Spinosa is a poet of digital and print media. She is sometimes a professor, sometimes a web developer, and all the time a co-founding editor of the feminist micropress Gap Riot. She has published several chapbooks of poetry, several more peer-reviewed journal articles on poetry, one long scholarly book, and one pink poetry book. She lives in beautiful Wasaga Beach, Ontario.

This is Spinosa’s third chapbook with above/ground press, after Glosas for Tired Eyes Volume 2 (2018) and Civilization (2020).

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

HAL magazine, guest edited by Karl Jirgens : Bowering, Spinosa, Earl, Tucker, Davey, Hogg, Clarke, McCaffery, Betts, beaulieu, Rogal, Hall, Lynes, Nećakov, mclennan, Barwin, Arnott, Ross + Norris,

In case you haven't seen, above/ground press author Karl Jirgens guest-edited the fourteenth anniversary issue of Hamilton Arts and Letters, and included work by a whole ton of folk, including numerous (current and former) above/ground press authors! Why not check out the issue as a whole? Or check out the specific submissions by George Bowering, Dani Spinosa, Amanda Earl, Aaron Tucker, Frank Davey, Robert Hogg, George Elliott Clarke, Steve McCaffery, Gregory Betts, derek beaulieu, Stan Rogal, Phil Hall, Jeanette Lynes, Lillian Nećakov, rob mclennan, Gary Barwin, Joanne Arnott, Stuart Ross and Ken Norris! And there are bunches of others as well! So you really have to check out the issue as a whole, really.

some author activity: O'Reilly, Siklosi, Spinosa, Chernoff, Best + the ottawa small press book fair,

Nathanael O'Reilly has a new poem up at Identity Theory; Kate Siklosi and Dani Spinosa are conducting a Late Winter Writers Residency Online through Banff Centre (apply now!); MLA Chernoff has a poem in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Ashley-Elizabeth Best has an article up at Chatelaine; and don't forget the ottawa small press book fair returns in two weeks, yes?

some author activity: Naughton, O'Reilly, Reid, Spinosa, Tate + Wilkins,

Katie Naughton is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Nathanael O'Reilly reads a poem in the "one minute poems" series via Rancid Idol Productions; Monty Reid is interviewed over at talking about strawberries all of the time, as is Dani Spinosa; Bronwen Tate is interviewed (with poems!) over at Etcetera; and both Monty Reid and Grant Wilkins are interviewed over at Pearl Pirie's blog.

some author activity: hanna, Tracy, Niespodziany, Betts, Beaulieu, Siklosi, Spinosa, Mavreas, Flemmer, Archer + Barwin,

natalie hanna has some new work up at where is the river; Dale Tracy participates in the Spotlight series; Benjamin Niespodziany has a new poem up at The Indianapolis Review; and Gregory Betts and Derek Beaulieu have co-edited a new short visual poetry anthology available as a free pdf, 14 Ways of Being Kinder to the Earth, with poems by fourteen visual poets, including Kate Siklosi, Dani Spinosa, Billy Mavreas, Kyle Flemmer, Sacha Archer and Gary Barwin.

some author activity: Mohammadi, Wilkinson, Ross, Spinosa, Niespodziany + Hunter,

Khashayar Mohammadi has won First Place in the Vallum Award for Poetry 2021; Joshua Marie Wilkinson has work in Bennington Review; Stuart Ross has new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as does Dani Spinosa and Benjamin Niespodziany, and Carrie Hunter is even interviewed!

Stefanie Ucci reviews Dani Spinosa's Civilization (2020) in Broken Pencil

Stefanie Ucci was good enough to provide the first review of Dani Spinosa's Civilization (2020) over at Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

‘Civilization’ will blow you right through the classroom wall

Chapbook, Dani Spinosa, 7 pgs, above/ground press, genericpronoun.com, @genericpronoun, $4

It’s the first day of school, class is in session, and today’s subject is history — or something like it. Oh, and hopefully your desk has a seatbelt, because Civilization will blow you right through the classroom wall. Dani Spinosa, an experimental poet, typesetter, and co-founder of the experimental feminist outfit Gap Riot Press, lives up to her reputation as a proven poetry punk as she takes you on lurching and disorienting tour of domination across oceans and centuries.

The chapbook’s voice is a practice in momentum, and each page brings a different colonization and a new opponent. It visits Victorian England and the fall of Rome, speaking as Moctezuma, but a unique version of the conqueror, one who is hellbent on capturing Charleston. Spinosa’s references spin and spill forth with such confidence that you’ll regret not paying attention in history class more so than you’ll question what you know or don’t about eons long past.

This chapbook’s shape-shifting time-traveling speaker might actually be power itself, personified. Collapsing space and time with such weight and gusto, able to justify anything in the name of expansion and control. Empire is the protagonist, but in the grand scheme of things, isn’t it always?

“It’s 1690. I’m in the Modern era. I declare war on the Spanish and start to move south,” Spinosa writes. “First, I take Rouen, which the Spanish conquered from the French. Later I’ll take Paris, too. The French have lost so much before I even arrive.”

I enjoy the barrage of early civilizations and, as the poet likely intends, I feel confused and challenged by the personality these eras are given. The text’s considerable nonchalance around defeating countries is paired with a fear that eventually they will be the one to get defeated, and I felt the same way about the chapbook — I get it, I’m in on it, or maybe I don’t, I’m not? Of course, defeat is not an option for you, nor for civilization. Wild.

above/ground press is on TIFA's interactive small press map of Canada!

In case you didn't see, Kate Siklosi and Dani Spinosa of Gap Riot Press partnered with the Toronto International Festival of Authors to construct an interactive map of small and micro presses across Canada! And an interview with me on above/ground press, where I speak highly of recent titles by George Stanley, Misha Solomon and Amanda Earl, lives there as part of it! It is all very impressive. [remember when they hosted a small press fair? that was totally fun. I wrote a whole slate of reviews following the event, even] The map is incredible, with short interviews and features with small press publishers from across the country, some of whom I hadn't been previously aware, including natalie hanna's battleaxe press, Karen Schindler's Baseline Press, Canthius, Kyle Flemmer's The Blasted Tree, Sacha Archer's Simulacrum Press, Marilyn Irwin's Shreeking Violet Press, jwcurry's Room 302 Books, Dessa Bayrock's post ghost press, Mallory Tater and Curtis LeBlanc's Rahila's Ghost Press, Geoffrey Nilson's pagefiftyone and a whole ton of others. You should check it out!

some author activity: Beaulieu, Spinosa, Siklosi, Earl, Mohammadi + Archer,

Derek Beaulieu has some new visual work in The Pi Review; Dani Spinosa and Kate Siklosi are interviewed as part of the Penteract Poetry Podcast; Amanda Earl has new work up at The Pi Review; Khashayar Mohammadi has new work up at Floodlight Poetry; and Sacha Archer was interviewed by Entropy.

poetry pause : the league of canadian poets

Thanks to The League of Canadian Poets' "poetry pause" series for helping celebrate twenty-seven years of above/ground press! The series allowed me to curate ten authors for recent slots, all of whom are Canadian (and/or Canadian-based) authors with 2020 above/ground press publications. Most of the poems included in the series are reprinted from their collections, but a few even provided new poems! Here are the authors' names, with the links to their "poetry pause" poems: Dani Spinosa, George Stanley, Khashayar Mohammadi, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Sarah Burgoyne, Lance La Rocque, J.R. Carpenter, Leesa Dean, Razielle Aigen and Dale Tracy. Can you believe we're twenty-seven years deep? What might the rest of the year bring? We are so close to thirty!

some author activity: Unsworth, Earl, Tierney, mclennan + Spinosa/Siklosi,

Lydia Unsworth has some new work up at Tentacular; Amanda Earl offers some nice words for the above/ground press anniversary (and a visual poem!) over at her blog; Orchid Tierney has some recent work up at Ethel; Jenya Stashkov asked rob mclennan for an interview and a poem, both of which appear here in English, as well as translated into Russian; Dani Spinosa and Kate Siklosi answer the "ottawa small press book fair : home editions" questions over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

new from above/ground press: Civilization, by Dani Spinosa

Civilization
Dani Spinosa
$4

The English

By 1858 I declare war on my final opponent, the English, who have taken the rest of this continent. They have redcoats, and by now I have tanks.

I take Hull, Sheffield.

In 1866, I take London. It’s the last capital on the map, and for this game, that means I’ve won. It plays a victory cut scene. I can’t stop.

Just one more turn…

I take Manchester. I take Stoke-upon-Trent. I take Plymouth.

I take Preston. I take Bradford. England is defeated. I do not see it, but imagine the game plays out a sad cut scene of a sun setting.

There is no cut scene. The dial simply loads, lets me choose the next turn.  

I can’t stop. I start taking over city states: La Venta, Lisbon. I head towards more but now I have AT crews that are clobbering catapults. It feels pointless, wrong.

And Love has spread across this world, tiny turtles by each city’s name.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Dani Spinosa is a poet and a scholar and an adjunct professor. She’s a co-founding editor of Gap Riot Press, the Managing Editor of the Electronic Literature Directory, and the author of two books: OO: Typewriter Poems (Invisible Publishing, 2020) and Anarchists in the Academy (U of Alberta Press, 2018). You can find her online at www.genericpronoun.com.

This is Spinosa’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after Glosas for Tired Eyes Volume 2 (2018).

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: hanna, Thomas, Trivedi, Maguire, Barton, Aigen, Spinosa + Weaver,

natalie hanna has a new poem on the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, as do Hugh Thomas, Amish Trivedi and Shannon Maguire; John Barton is interviewed for the Chaudiere Books blog in the "Six Questions" series; Razielle Aigen is interviewed at Train : a poetry journal; and Dani Spinosa writes on Andy Weaver for Open Book.

some author activity: Spinosa, Siklosi, Beaulieu, Swensen, Smith, Ross + Schmaltz,

Dani Spinosa writes on Kate Siklosi for Open Book, Kate Siklosi also has some new work up at Poem Atlas, as does Derek Beaulieu; Cole Swensen has new work up at The Brooklyn Rail, as does Dale Smith; Stuart Ross has a new poem online as part of National Poetry Month at the Chaudiere Books blog; and Dani Spinosa writes on Eric Schmaltz for Open Book.

some author activity: Spinosa, Barwin, Sikkema, Earl, Rogal + Siklosi,

Dani Spinosa begins her residency at Open Book with an article that references Gary Barwin and Michael Sikkema, which you should totally read; Amanda Earl has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month; Stan Rogal has a new poem up at Train : a poetry journal; and Kate Siklosi has a new essay in the Talking Poetics series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

some author activity: Koss, Sikkema, Spinosa, Radmore + Baus,

Zane Koss is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Michael Sikkema has a new essay in the "On Writing" series at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Dani Spinosa is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; Claudia Coutu Radmore is interviewed via Chaudiere Books; and Eric Baus has a new essay in the Talking Poetics series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

some author activity: Izsak, Christie, Burgoyne, Sweeney, Spinosa, Beaulieu + Ball,

Emily Izsak, Jason Christie, Sarah Burgoyne and Heather Sweeney have new work in the sixteenth issue of where is the river; Dani Spinosa has a new visual poem up at Train : a poetry journal; Derek Beaulieu is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; and Ryan Pratt has a new piece on working through the late Nelson Ball's literary archive.

some author activity: Siklosi, Spinosa, Boyle, Clayton, Saklikar + Pirie,

Kate Siklosi and Dani Spinosa of Gap Riot Press are interviewed over at Entropy; Frances Boyle and Conyer Clayton both have new work in the new issue of Parenthesis Journal; Renée Sarojini Saklikar has a poem in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; and Pearl Pirie's essay, "Writing After A Concussion," is now up at the Quebec Writers Federation blog.