some author activity: Reid, Logan, Higdon, Houbolt + Munson,

Monty Reid is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Nate Logan has new work up at Otoliths, as well as Leavings; Hailey Higdon wrote an article on mothering for Nashville Scene; forthcoming author Kyla Houbolt has a prose poem up at Idle Ink; and Jed Munson answers the '12 and 20 questions.'

some author activity, dueck, Dowling, Higdon, Barwin + Reid,

nathan dueck has two new poems and a statement up as part of the Spotlight series; Sarah Dowling is being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Hailey Higdon has a new poem in Typo; Gary Barwin has an essay on the CBC website on surviving lockdown; and Monty Reid has some new work up at Train : a poetry journal.

some author activity: Unsworth, Clayton, Graham + Higdon,

forthcoming author Lydia Unsworth has an essay in the "On Writing" series at the ottawa poetry newsletter; forthcoming author Conyer Clayton is featured in rob mclennan's Spotlight series via Medium; Lea Graham has a new poem up at typishly; and Hailey Higdon is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: mclennan, Earl, Young, Smith + Higdon,

rob mclennan has some poems up in Volume 1 of Theta Wave; Amanda Earl (among others) participates in the Queen Mob's Review of 2018, over at Queen Mob's Teahouse; Geoffrey Young, Jessica Smith and others have work in the anthology The Emerald Tablet; and Hailey Higdon provides her own list of 2018 Recommended Reading for Bloof Books.

some author activity: mclennan, Higdon, Greenstreet + Fox,

[Lady Aoife providing a valuable production assist] rob mclennan has a new poem up at Crap Orgasm; Hailey Higdon interviews Joanne Kyger over at Queen Mob's Teahouse; Kate Greenstreet is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Sarah Fox has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog.

dusie kollektiv #8, curated by rob mclennan, now online

The 8th “dusie kollektiv” is now online, with pdfs of a variety of chapbooks by multiple current and former above/ground press authors (among a long list of others).

above/ground press authors in the 8th kollektiv include: Gary Barwin, Joe Blades, Rob Budde, Jason Christie, Amanda Earl, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Hailey Higdon, Megan Kaminski, Marcus McCann, rob mclennan, Marthe Reed, Elizabeth Robinson, Jessica Smith and Chris Turnbull.

See the link here to read all sorts of dusie goodness from across North America (and occasionally beyond!).

some author activity: Higdon, mclennan, Downs + Braune,

did you know that Hailey Higdon has a blog? ; rob mclennan is now a monthly blogger for Ploughshares; Buck Downs is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Sean Braune has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog.

some author activity: Higdon, beaulieu, Waldrop, Schapira + Brockwell,

Hailey Higdon had some new work up at Bloof for the sake of National Poetry Month; derek beaulieu has a new visual poem up at h&; Rosmarie Waldrop has a new poem, with accompanying write-up by Ben Lerner, over at Harper's; Kate Schapira has some new work up at The Wanderer; and Stephen Brockwell (pictured) has a new poem (with audio) over at The Puritan.

some author activity: Higdon, Armantrout, Smith + Ladouceur,

The audio of a 2009 Philadelphia reading at Chapter & Verse by Hailey Higdon, alongside Jenn McCreary and Ethan Fugate, is now online; Rae Armantrout has two new poems online at Granta; Jessica Smith writes on her desk over at Real Pants; and Thomas March provides a very close reading of a poem by Ben Ladouceur over at Lambda Literary.

Pearl Pirie reviews Hailey Higdon’s The State in Which (2013)

Pearl Pirie was good enough to discuss Hailey Higdon’s The State in Which (2013) in her “95books” project over at her blog. Thanks much! Although it is a bit disappointing to realize one of the pages got flipped (I’ll have to get her a replacement copy). This is actually the third review of Higdon’s chapbook, after Edric Mesmer discussed such over at Yellow Field, and Ryan Pratt discussed it over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

211. The State in Which by Hailey Higdon (above/ground, 2013)

This was a project to write one poem per month. My copy of the chapbook was assembled wrong somehow so continuity was mussed in June and July. It was kind of diary and self-conscious of writing as writing. It fell in and out of focus. For example, the first half of December,

so many people are ok

with not being the best

versions of themselves

it was a million domestic

situations that made me

choose from one thing to the next

rebel, this is what I did

I stopped the idle, saying

yes, so much more often, so much more, storing up, collecting yeses,

risk, but the inverse

of take it and move on, I used to

keep repeating the same mistake–

quitting days, I know better now

The first three lines sound promising. Then its structured as stream of consciousness. Why not take the time to untangle. Part of it is the chaotic surge forward of life “I am looking for jobs, trying to locate the future perfect. How poinsettias arrive in the grocery story each year, looking so consistently identical, you can’t help staring.”

some author activity: Higdon, Kaminski, Carr, Landman, Butler + Robinson,

Hailey Higdon has a recent piece up at Coldfront; Megan Kaminski picks another "song of the week" over at Coldfront as well; Emily Carr has new work in the August 2014 issue of Front Porch; Seth Landman has some new work over in NOO Journal #15; Jenna Butler has a short piece on the CBC website on why one should never write in a vacuum; and forthcoming above/ground press author Elizabeth Robinson responds to Where Do You Write, My Lovely?

some author activity: Young, Armantrout, Higdon, beaulieu + Hall,

Deanna Young has a new website to go along with her forthcoming trade poetry title; The Fiddlehead has a retrospective of the work of Rae Armantrout in their summer 2014 issue; Hailey Higdon's chapbook PACKING (Bloof Books) is now available for free download; derek beaulieu gets some good love from The Star Phoenix; and the University of Ottawa has announced a new undergrad poetry workshop with their fall writer-in-residence Phil Hall.

some author activity: Bolster, Maguire, eckhoff, Higdon, Hancock + Smith,

Stephanie Bolster has a new poem up at Hazlitt; Shannon Maguire participates in The Great Canadian Writers Craft Interview over at Open Book: Toronto; kevin mcpherson eckhoff has a new piece, "Their Death #1," over at their biography; Sarah Heady gives some love to Hailey Higdon; Brecken Hancock's second writer-in-residence piece is up at Open Book: Toronto; and Jessica Smith posted her '2013 year in review' back in December (even if we didn't notice such until now).

Edric Mesmer discusses (briefly) six recent above/ground press chapbooks;

Edric Mesmer was good enough to mention six recent above/ground press titles in the new issue of YELLOW FIELD (#nine; spring 2014): An Overture in the Key of F by Carrie Olivia Adams; The State of Which by Hailey Higdon; Sugar Beach by Camille Martin; from Hark: a journal by rob mclennan; Overheard While Hiding from the Sun: post-notebook poems by Kate Schapira; and Albanian Suite by Hugh Thomas). Thanks, Edric! There are two previous reviews of Adams' title here and here, a previous review of Higdon's title here, two previous reviews of Martin's title here and here, two previous reviews of mclennan's title here and here, and a previous review of Thomas' title here, and copies of all are very much available! Also, you can pick up a copy of the new issue of YELLOW FIELD through: yellowedenwaldfield [at] yahoo [dot] com or by writing to 1217 Delaware Avenue, Apt. 802, Buffalo, New York 14209. For those who haven’t been able to pick up an issue yet, I reprint such here:

6 more from above/ground press        2013-2014

I love a small press, what it can say through its poetics—in this case, chapbooks answering the call of a contemporary lea. Consider a cache of birds, a quintet of strings; but the trope may or mayn’t be limited to birdsong, string, or color-tone…Sometimes there’s a poem in which Buffalo poet emeritus Bill Sylvester writes: “pepper linen incense lobster / lutes viols and ambergris […] what a messy party that would be!” And so we messily hear a great party of Darwinian diversity: “The formalist of formant when our lips make the vowel, it I the act of giving somewhere shape” (An Overture in the Key of F by Carrie Olivia Adams); “I did some trying to voice the regional things –accents and whatnot / I even tried to find that series of hybridized creatures, part person / part place that exist in the park” (The State of Which by Hailey Higdon); “viewing creation / / from a precisely-gauged periphery, clock ticking” (Sugar Beach by Camille Martin); “A stone made out of stone. The dream of people you can’t know. Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, Bay. We know you, myth. What lifestyle will not allow” (from Hark: a journal by rob mclennan); “Anyone can submit / a video to the Free Me Library. Can find / purchase for brilliance, can be avenged sevenfold or / touched relevantly. All that can be shelved in me” (Overheard While Hiding from the Sun: post-notebook poems by Kate Schapira); “cadence address catch dreams / pays and agree, chlorate of poems, / empathic, the old epidemic / things themselves” (Albanian Suite by Hugh Thomas).

some author activity: Brockwell, McElroy, mclennan, Martin, Higdon, Betts, Cain + Poe,

Stephen Brockwell facilitates a TREE Seed Workshop on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 from 6:45 to 7:45pm on French Canadian Poetry; Gil McElroy, rob mclennan, Camille Martin and Hailey Higdon (among others) have new work in the first issue of Touch the Donkey; Gregory Betts writes on M. NourbeSe Philip over at Jacket 2, "Not against expression"; Stephen Cain responds as part of the "At the desk" series at Open Book: Ontario, as does rob mclennan; and Deborah Poe and Megan Burns posted a reading of part of their Poetry Month collaboration-in-progress over on SoundCloud.

some author activity: Earl, Greenstreet, Ackerson-Kiely, MillAr, Brockwell, Clarke + Higdon,

Amanda Earl reviews the recent Factory Reading Series event featuring Kate Greenstreet, DJ Dolack and Paige Ackerson-Kiely over at her blog; Jay MillAr has some new poems up at The Puritan; both Stephen Brockwell (poems) and George Elliott Clarke (reviews) have new work posted in issue #17 of Maple Tree Literary Supplement; and Hailey Higdon contributes an essay to the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

Ryan Pratt reviews Hailey Higdon's The State in Which (2013)

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to provide the first review of Hailey Higdon's The State in Which (2013) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

some author activity: Cochrane, Armantrout, mclennan, Higdon, Wilkinson, Butler, Betts, Cooley + Barbour,

[photo of Mark Cochrane reading Cat. on the poetry bus at Vancouver's WORD festival on September 29, 2013; photo credit: Kevin Spenst] Rae Armantrout and rob mclennan both have new work in the second issue of N/A; Hailey Higdon has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog; there's a new interview with Joshua Marie Wilkinson over at Under A Warm Green Linden, Christopher Nelson's poetry blog; Jenna Butler guest-edits a Canadian poetry section in the October 2013 issue of Connotation Press online, including new writing by rob mclennan, Gregory Betts, Dennis Cooley, Douglas Barbour and plenty of others.

new from above/ground press: The State In Which, by Hailey Higdon

The State In Which

Hailey Higdon

$4

March

The damn directions--the fact of hills, curves, can’t quite be mapped. In the blackest minutes I grow more sterile while everyone else is starting to wake up, shaking branches, bugs stick. If this were a situation with a hostage the police would be pointing their guns giving the motion calm down without the action to accompany it. There is a wild rose called lady banks which opens colors patchy but explicit on the fences around.

I woke up to a mirror. It was already March, things were in bloom, I could hear them. I wanted their motion to be bidirectional to me just like when someone says happy birthday to me my instinct is to always want it to be bidirectional, to say, “Happy birthday to you too!”

My professor would call me one of the late bloomers and not because of my small boobs because making progress in a human takes longer than a season. Sometimes producing the overall sound of excitement involves periods of bootless duty to the idea of mortality.

I’ll stop there and describe my reflection. “Wake up,” it says.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

October 2013

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Hailey Higdon is from Nashville. She is the author of Packing (Bloof Books, 2012) and How To Grow Almost Everything (Agnes Fox, 2011).  She is friends with everyone and loves everywhere. She currently resides in Snohomish, Washington.

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

above/ground press: 2014 subscriptions now available! (and new address!

The twentieth anniversary year might be winding down, but that doesn’t mean we over at above/ground press (really, it’s just me) are doing any less. 2013 has been one of the most productive publishing years the press has seen, producing (so far) twenty-three chapbooks, six broadsheets, and two issues of The Peter F Yacht Club! Forthcoming titles for 2013 include new works by Rae Armantrout and Hailey Higdon, and a 2014 title by Hugh Thomas (to launch at The Factory Reading Series in February), plus a whole ton of other material we haven’t even decided on yet.

2014 annual subscriptions are now available: $50 (in the United States, $50 US; $75 international) for everything above/ground press makes from now until the end of 2014.

Anyone who subscribes before November 1st will also receive the last above/ground press package of 2013, including those exciting new titles by Rae Armantrout and Hailey Higdon (plus whatever else the press happens to produce before the turn of the new year).

Why wait? You can either send a cheque (payable to rob mclennan) to 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7M9 [NEW ADDRESS!] or drop the money on the Paypal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

And keep checking notices for The Factory Reading Series. There’s so much more to come.