some author activity: Solomon, Berlatsky, Rogal, carisse, Baus + Dreiblatt,

Misha Solomon wrote on the late Ian Stephens for The Fiddlehead; Noah Berlatsky is interviewed over at talking about strawberries all of the time, where Stan Rogal and russell carisse also have poems; and the video from Eric Baus and Ian Dreiblatt's zoom-reading in Jack Krick's Hugely Popular series is now online.

some author activity: Brenner, Baus, mclennan, Kaminski + Burnham,

Summer Brenner has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; some of Eric Baus' poems were translated into Czech; rob mclennan is featured via Instagram on Stephanie Austin's mugshot writers; Megan Kaminski features at Etcetera; and Clint Burnham is interviewed in the '12 or 20 questions' series.

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.

Amanda Earl reviews chapbooks by Irwin, Lea, Baus, Dean and Kasimor,

beloved above/ground press author Amanda Earl was good enough to provide first reviews for a small handful of above/ground press titles, including Marilyn Irwin's the day the moon went away (2019), N.W. Lea's Five Mothers (2019), Eric Baus' Euphorbia (2020) and Lessa Dean's The Desert of Itabira (2020), as well as a second review (after John C. Goodman discussed such over at Otoliths) of Mary Kasimor's disrobing iris (2019), among some other titles discussed, in her "a few notes on some recent chapbooks" over at her blog. Thank you! You can see her original review here. As she writes:

Marilyn Irwin – the day the moon went away (above/ground press, August, 2019)

I am a fan and a dear friend of Marilyn’s so it comes as no surprise that I enjoyed this chapbook, from the snail on the cover to its reappearance in a poem, to the poems on not having a baby. there’s a sweet sadness to the work, mixed with a practicality about life and a concern for the environment. there’s concern. I have several favourites in the collection, but I’m particularly fond of “hum,” which begins “the first definition/of suicide/begins/with monks/robes/indistinguishable/from/skin cinder”—an unusual and memorable image. I want a book by Marilyn soon please, publishers. and so should you.

N.W. Lea - Five Mothers (above/ground press, October 2019)

I am a big fan of Lea’s writing. It’s contemplative, unusual and minimal. There is humour, playfulness, unique and powerful imagery and a consistency of tone throughout the chapbook.

Mary Kasimor - disrobing iris (above/ground press, November 2019)

I began reading these poems and then got so excited by the incantatory and exquisite imagery and sound play that I had to read them aloud. the poem “dropped stiches” stayed with me long after I read it the first time. This is a symphony of melancholy and grief, rebellion. I loved them.

Eric Baus – Euphorbia (above/ground press, January 2020)

i enjoyed these microscopic observations and musings of/on nature. These are powerful prose poems that delighted and fascinated me. The only thing I didn’t like was the font, which could have been Futura or Arial, I’m guessing but probably wrong, and what appears to be boldface for the entire collection. It is the opposite of the work for me. It is shouty and brash. That’s not what I’m reading. I’m reading softer, more subtle and delicate observations and musings.

Here are two of the poems that resonated greatly with me:

Pattern Anguish

Hawks glide above other hawks to kill escaping sky, a faraway star burning their faces.
Hum, Hurts

So the rosin, as the rain was, flowered its watts, precipitates a leaf, has been one, exhausts the teeth of animal speech, a siren under wool, hums, hurts.

Lessa Dean – the Desert of Itabira (above/ground press, January 2020)

This is an excerpt from a novella in verse entitled Manuelzimbo; a found poetry project based on the work of Elizabeth Bishop. I can’t wait to read the entire novella. The excerpt is mesmerizing. It evokes the desert paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe for me, extremely visual and startling: “We are taken to a red temple/a woman in a cloak of bones/greets us in a language/none of us know”.

I am in love with the dark imagery of this work: “The dynasty of violence threads our sleep/leaves bruises each night we shower ourselves/in superstitious rituals drink snake blood/   leave on the drowned green light”

This work also evokes the haunting imagery of the poetry of Sandra Ridley. I envisage a collaboration between Dean and Ridley. I think it would be wing-swept and haunting.

new from above/ground press: Euphorbia, by Eric Baus

Euphorbia
Eric Baus
$5
 

Commandeered mirror

In the afterlife of pumas, in the green hovering slightly above a branch, in the antique wings of an ostrich covering your mouth, the film of a woman framing a fading tree between her hands is not a mindless river, knowable as the lowest cloud, but the top of a small hill between pages wounded by a spool of blue thread, patiently printing fire beyond the door. When I am finally lifted over the bed, the branch, the quiet, the absent cats, the little cloud, the fire’s involuntary embroidery, two or three figures, at least, hold hands beneath my back. But who has placed my arms like this, misspelled, where I am suddenly a swimmer near the ceiling, learning to rain in a room, on a book?

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

Eric Baus is the author of five books of poetry: How I Became a Hum (Octopus 2019), The Tranquilized Tongue (City Lights 2014), Scared Text (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011), Tuned Droves (Octopus Books, 2009), and The To Sound (Wave Books, 2004). He teaches literature and creative writing at Regis University’s Mile High MFA program in Denver, where he is assistant director and core faculty in poetry.

This is Baus’ second chapbook with above/ground press chapbooks, after THE RAIN OF THE ICE (2014).

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: Archer, Clayton, Baus, Aigen + Earl,

Sacha Archer has new work up at Train : a poetry journal; Conyer Clayton has some new work in Black Bough Poetry; Eric Baus has a new blog post via the Poetry Foundation; Razielle Aigen answers her five favourites over at The Poetry Question; and Amanda Earl has a new visual poem up at Train : a poetry journal.

some author activity: Ross, Claxton, Baus, Johnson, Gold + Perry,

some of Stuart Ross' poems have been translated into Russian; Dana Claxton has won the Hnatyshyn Foundation's $25,000.00 prize for outstanding achievement by a Canadian mid-career artist; Eric Baus is interviewed over at Neon Pajamas; Chris Johnson has a short poem, after Artie Gold, with a couple of interview questions, online at Canadian Literature; and Paul Perry has an article in the Irish Times on writing a children's novel.

some author activity: Baus, Trivedi, Armantrout + beaulieu,

Eric Baus has a new poem up at Poets.org; Amish Trivedi has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; Rae Armantrout wrote on John Ashbery for The New York Times and derek beaulieu is interviewed by Nancy Ellen Miller.

some author activity: Kronovet, Poe, Baus, Landman + Cooley,

Jennifer Kronovet's second full-length poetry manuscript has been picked up by Ecco, as part of the National Poetry Series; Deborah Poe reviews and interviews Elizabeth Savage over at Jacket2; Eric Baus and Seth Landman have pieces in the "Insect Poetics" issue, guest-edited by Mathias Svalina, of Evening Will Come; and Monique Sherrett writes on Dennis Cooley for Brick Books' year-long Celebration of Canadian Poetry.

some author activity: Baus, mclennan, Hall, Rogal, Graham + Massey,

Eric Baus writes on Eliane Radigue over at Coldfront; rob mclennan has a new poem up at Cosmonauts Avenue; Ruth R. Pierson writes on Phil Hall over at the Brick Books website; Stan Rogal writes on Emma Healey as "Poetry Primer #9" for All Lit Up; Lea Graham has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Karen Massey.

Amanda Earl reviews Sarah Rosenthal's Estelle Morning Star (2014), Hugh Thomas' Albanian Suite (2014), N.W. Lea's Present! (2014), Camille Martin's Sugar Beach (2014), Eric Baus' THE RAIN OF THE ICE (2014) and Rachel Moritz' Many forms in water (2014)

Amanda Earl was good enough to review Sarah Rosenthal's Estelle Morning Star (2014), Hugh Thomas' Albanian Suite (2014), N.W. Lea's Present! (2014), Camille Martin's Sugar Beach (2014), Eric Baus' THE RAIN OF THE ICE (2014) and Rachel Moritz' Many forms in water (2014) as a group post on a variety of above/ground press in 2014 so far over at her enormously clever blog (might this be a time to remind you about the 2015 subscriptions?). Thanks, Amanda! See her original post here, and all of the titles she mentioned are still available (so far). And, for those keeping track, there are three previous reviews of Martin's chapbook here and here and here, a previous review of Baus' chapbook here, a previous review of Lea's chapbook here, and two previous group reviews that include Lea and Thomas here and even here.

hunting for the dark: above/ground press...2014 so far...

on an unseasonably rainy & cold night in mid-August I had an appetite for the above. I wanted to look in less obvious places. I have a stack of above/ground press chapbooks published in 2014, since i am a subscriber…i was curious to see if any of the authors had a penchant for the Gothic, etc. what i found primarily was an overriding tone of anxiety concerning the monotony of 21st century existence. seems scary enough to me...

Sarah Rosenthal’s "Estelle Morning Star" fits the bill nicely with descriptions of women carrying “dying dead things” “emaciated/mangled/animals” I love her turns of phrase & odd juxtapositions, a sense of the macabre amongst business like celebration: “hard core birds in the / ballroom throw themselves/at convention windows/clatter to the table      their/colours running out.” she paints a vivid picture. Estelle wears mary janes.

Hugh Thomas gives us absurd portraits of anxious composers pursued by fierce demons in "Albanian Suite."“When I was with you, the ravens/and milktrucks made such music.” a fun use of black & white. in “Epithalamion” there are bite-marked necks, the monotony of waiting. “It misunderstands today’s poetry/overgrown with wildflowers to forget these sojourners.”  “Poetry is a pagoda, built of friendly embracings, like a square dance complicating society” … a ticket to days of radishes/and saliva” not to discount the beauty in these poems. it’s there between ice-cold moments: “Time, you murderous sun fills my lungs with honey,” there’s something sweetly chilling about that image. & another from “Selfportrait Unwilling to Sit”: “a tramcar apocalypse/on the move/dragging behind dissonance, divine regret.” there’s something Gothic about that image. & in “Metropolitan”: “The two sicknesses frequent in this epoch are heat and isolation.” Thomas’ poems alternate between the tiniest, spot on observations to elaborate, absurd images. I have to say, this is one of my favourite chapbooks this year so far. some of the poems are translations.

In "Present!" N.W. Lea opens with a gangster with rubber extendable arms holding someone up like a baby. an absurd image & not without its horrifying effect…followed later in the next poem in the sequence by “the swans of hurt/burn circles in the snow” there’s lots here about the terror of mundanity, of the burbs…even a littered cough candy is menacing: “a pale pink/half-sucked lozenge/on the pavement/glinting//plus us//have to contend with the teeth of the neighbourhood” you are “snug in your death-sweater.” there are “great swarms/of dusk-bats” "Present!" is a sequence of estrangement.

there are some menacing animals & a kind of helplessness, a monotony in Camille Martin’s "Sugar Beach:" “A leap of leopards under a crescent moon/happens without us, but we’re there/just the same.” “Newfangleness” Sharpshooters are juxtaposed with picnics in “Blind Engine.” In “No Such Identical Horses,” Martin writes, “I was counting on my favourite superstition/to endow the mirage with authority.” There are rotted leaves, wormy fruit, a beast stampeding down a trail, “the chitinous exoskeleton of a locust” & in the title poem a feeling of wasted extravagance in an image of a rusty tanker scooping “mounds of raw sugar.”  “Machine in the Ghost” evokes a cemetery scene. The poems in this chapbook are sound & image collages.

Eric Baus gives us fanciful nightmares of octopi with burned tentacles, ghosts, insects in “The Rain of Ice.” I loved how imaginative & unusual these prose poems were.

In “Many forms in water,” Rachel Moritz gives us white coffins, bitter flowers, gathering storms, “the ribbon of heat rising past digits black in air.” In “The finished forms in the sand record movement that has ceased,” this is a particularly grotesque image: “I carried her through the woods, slept in waterlogged leaves with her body on my chest.” This poem & the others manage to create a tone of melancholy, grief, poignant emotions. I’m quite enamoured of these poems, especially imagery like “How we carried the bell down irrevocable stairs, passed our sentence of doubt and kept moving.” in “Flowing water encounters a widely submerged outside.”

Ryan Pratt reviews Eric Baus' THE RAIN OF THE ICE (2014) and Emily Ursuliak's Braking and Blather (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Eric Baus' THE RAIN OF THE ICE (2014) here and Emily Ursuliak's Braking and Blather (2014) here in separate posts over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

some author activity: Martin, Pirie, beaulieu, Smith, Browning + Baus,

Camille Martin has curated a small "Robert Zend Sampler" of visual poetry over at Coldfront magazine; Pearl Pirie is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; derek beaulieu's "Game of Life: A User's Manual" is now online at NewPoetry; Jessica Smith has new work up in The Volta, guest-edited by Sommer Browning; and Eric Baus has some new poems up in Wag's Revue.

some author activity: Martin, Baus, Hajnoczky, Smith + Robertson,

Camille Martin is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey, as is Eric Baus; Helen Hajnoczky reads every page of Jordan Scott's blert (Coach House Books, 2008) all at once; Camille Martin has twenty poems from a work-in-progress appear online in Stride magazine; Jessica Smith writes on Ron Silliman over at Jacket2; and Maria Lind writes on Lisa Robertson in ArtReview.

new from above/ground press: THE RAIN OF THE ICE, by Eric Baus

THE RAIN OF THE ICE
Eric Baus
$4

LOST MOAT

The injured octopus commandeered my limbs. It furrowed a crown of iron from its sponge dome but I felt no cruelty in the creature's cage. The wall of its body was more an annoyed wave. I was being guided, rained into a room where a tiny moon arose. I was being aired out, not raided. I touched the closest tentacle and felt a burned down candle. We were sharing an urn that was groomed for the cliffs. Mute and molting, we grabbed talons. We were born in a town around the block from our remains. We felt sad for our hands. We had loved our lost moat.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2014
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Eric Baus is the author of four books of poetry, The Tranquilized Tongue (City Lights, 2014), Scared Text (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011), Tuned Droves (Octopus Books, 2009) and The To Sound (Wave Books, 2004). He lives and teaches in Denver.

He also has work in the first issue of Touch the Donkey.

Cover image by Brian Lucas.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

The Volta Book of Poets: Wilkinson, Browning, Baus, Carr, Gordon, Wagner, etc.

Sidebrow Books has announced an indiegogo campaign in support of the publication of The Volta Book of Poets, edited by Joshua Marie Wilkinson. Normally, I wouldn't be posting fundraisers for all the other publishers, but between Wilkinson and a handful of other names, it means the book includes a number of authors published by above/ground press, as well as through the first two issues of Touch the Donkey (the second issue is due in July), and even the "Tuesday poem" series over at dusie. Besides, given the list of names, the book can't help but be anything but amazing. Please consider tossing a couple of bucks their way, or, if not, perhaps pick up a copy once it appears! As the indiegogo write-up begins:

THE VOLTA BOOK OF POETS features an array of talented poets representing a myriad of poetic schools, 25 male, 25 female: 

Rosa Alcalá, Eric Baus, Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Susan Briante, Sommer Browning, Julie Carr, Don Mee Choi, Arda Collins, Dot Devota, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Graham Foust, C.S. Giscombe, Renee Gladman, Noah Eli Gordon, Yona Harvey, Matthew Henriksen, Harmony Holiday, Cathy Park Hong, Bhanu Kapil, John Keene, Aaron Kunin, Dorothea Lasky, Juliana Leslie, Rachel Levitsky, Tan Lin, Dawn Lundy Martin, J. Michael Martinez, Farid Matuk, Shane McCrae, Anna Moschovakis, Fred Moten, Sawako Nakayasu, Chris Nealon, Hoa Nguyen, Khadijah Queen, Andrea Rexilius, Zachary Schomburg, Brandon Shimoda, Evie Shockley, Cedar Sigo, Abraham Smith, Christopher Stackhouse, Mathias Svalina, Roberto Tejada,TC Tolbert, Catherine Wagner, Dana Ward, Ronaldo V. Wilson, Lynn Xu

From Joshua Marie Wilkinson’s introduction:  “My goal is a relatively modest one: to cite a mere constellation. Indeed fifty stars in the night sky are a fraction of what lurks out there. While that’s a drastic metaphor, anybody familiar with poetry these days is readily stunned by the sheer quantity of poets writing and publishing.”

Each poet offers a statement of poetics to accompany their selection of poems. Contrasting styles, diverse voices, unique obsessions, differing poetic influences and approaches to cultural identity, THE VOLTA BOOK OF POETS is a celebration of contrasts. Think of it less as a unifying, thematic gesture than a starter map -- radiating out to poets, books, journals, reading series, nonprofits, and other organizations committed to the advancement of poets and poetry.