above/ground press: Elizabeth Robinson

Report from the Robinson Society
Vol 1. No. 1
edited by rob mclennan
$7

an assemblage of writing in response
to the work of Elizabeth Robinson

including
poems, critical writings
and
philosophical transactions

with contributions by:
George Albon
Avery Burns
Valerie Coulton
Patricia Dienstfrey
Tiff Dressen
Susanne Dyckman
rob mclennan
Benjamin Niespodziany
Steven Seidenberg
Laura Sims
Edward Smallfield
Ginny Threefoot
Barbara Tomash
Laura Walker
Maw Shein Win

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2022
full list of published reports here
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Report on the Society logo by C. McNair, editor’s devil (retired)

Elizabeth Robinson has two chapbooks with above/ground press--Simplified Holy Passage (2015) and Pattern refuses to repeat itself = is divine (2017)--and edited issue #11 of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors].

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

Cam Gordon was good enough to provide the first review of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #11, edited by Elizabeth Robinson (2020) over at Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

‘Guest #11’ feels like a final artifact of a time that is never coming back

Zine, Elizabeth Robinson (editor), 60 pgs, above/ground press, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, ON K1H 7M9

Short on words and high on concept, Guest 11 is a delicate collection of prose, poems and short stories. Each edition of this journal from above/ground press features a different guest editor. When Elizabeth Robinson took the wheel, she invited nine contributors, all of them recent contacts from her life and work.

Not unlike lovely silly stuff like the Ultimate Fighting Championship and the first four Led Zeppelin numbers, it’s a good collection in terms of variety. Interestingly, Robinson wrote the foreward for this collection in early, early March 2020 — mere days before the COVID-19 pandemic truly began to ravage the planet. Thus, the zine already feels like a final artifact of a time that is never coming back. Given that Robinson chose poets and pals with whom she had recently communicated to be the contributors, it’s both recent and distant, and there’s a sadness, a kind of warp to the experience of reading it. This might not have been planned. But this is straight poetry here, and its grace is that it isn’t trying to do too much, nor be overly smart or pulpy or of the moment.

This is a passion project to be sure, and given the breadth and scope that these works offer, there’s probably something for everyone here.