some author activity: Smith, Browne, Carr, Ebbitt, Armantrout, Barwin + McEwan,

Mahaila Smith has new work up at Strange Horizons; the recent "Writing as Alchemy" event, featuring readings by Laynie Browne, Julie Carr and Chloe Garcia Roberts, is now on YouTube via the HDS Center for the Study of World Religions; Katie Ebbitt has new work in the Spotlight series; Rae Armantrout has new work in Plume; and both Gary Barwin and Drew McEwen have new work up at The Ex-Puritan.

some author activity: Boyle, Carr, Johnson, Mc Donnell + mclennan,

Frances Boyle has new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time; Julie Carr is interviewed over at Tupelo Quarterly; Chris Johnson has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; Conor Mc Donnell has an essay up at The Woodlot, as does rob mclennan, who also offers an essay on his new poetry manuscript-in-progress, a poem from such is now up at minor literature[s].

some author activity: Tierney, Skrabalak, Carr, Robinson, Shea + Eleftherion,

Orchid Tierney is the third in the above/ground press author spotlights via the above/ground press substack; Ryan Skrabalak is interviewed alongside Robbie Wing by Miriam Atkin for "Specific Objects," WGXC: Radio for Open Ears; Julie Carr and Elizabeth Robinson have new work in the latest issue of Posit; Michael Martin Shea has some new translations of poems by Augusto Lunel over at Black Sun Lit; and Melissa Eleftherion has new work up Stone Circle Review.

some author activity: Flowers, Mc Donnell, Strang, Rogal, Carr + Nichol,

Neil Flowers has a new poem up at The Typescript; Conor Mc Donnell has a poem and statement up at the Spotlight series; Catriona Strang has a new poem in the "Tuesday poem' series; Stan Rogal has two new poems up at The Pi Review; Julie Carr has new work up at Antiphony; and a 1984 episode of the TVO program Canadian Literature is on YouTube, featuring the late Toronto poet bpNichol.

some author activity: Graham, Hogg, Blouin, Carr, Henning + Niespodziany,

Lea Graham has a poem for Bob Hogg up at The Typescript, as does Michael Blouin; Julie Carr has new work in the first issue of atsmospheric quarterly; Barbara Henning now has an author page at Poets.org; and Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at JMWW.

new from above/ground press: river / estuaries, by Julie Carr and rob mclennan

river / estuaries
Julie Carr and rob mclennan
$6

river : three


where girls test ice    tapping boot heels against fragile shine

where masked they swing

where long fronds bend toward the duckpond’s lip

as if to drink or kiss

I’d been reading about boys online in their secret spaces they

give each other hard-ons talking about raping fat Jews

I’d been thinking about my mother’s face when she was

by something she’d read or remembered made afraid.

when we walked into a crowd

of history’s predatory glances    we knew them    they were

as if our friends

they stood    held the ropes and rocked

until the swings jumped the air    their torsos nearly

horizontal   like hawks.


 
estuaries : three


boot heel, marks        a question; how this body
crumbles,

        through soil erosion, deforestation,

overgrazing, overfishing
, or the filling of wetlands,        such fury,

    curtailed by dirt,

        *

I walk into a crowd        , an ocean
    of intimate glances, procrastinations

on the edge of; [estuaries: roped and rocked]

        how I did not know

how betrayal unfurls, congeals;
, the blue spark, torsos

how one unpacks speech: one lifts
            a stone,         inspects

and audits every fissure,    
    
        *

what is this love?            had ever
                    kissed

    , such fundamental action

    , such raw, and outward

let’s go down, come on down

until the swings jumped air,

        *

to surround yourself with water
does not portray you
                , land

we test the ice; and tether,

        *

the assumption            of the rockface,
    scars, a transport
            with my mouth

, these horizontal wings; a spread of lilacs,
lilies, intemperate water-fowl,
                    the mallard’s
    green head like a handle,

I could scarcely bid

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Julie Carr’s most recent books are Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West, Real Life: An Installation and the essay collection, Someone Shot My Book. She lives in Denver where she helps to run Counterpath and teaches at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

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 titles include the poetry collections the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022) and World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), and a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022). Fall 2023 also sees the publication of groundwork: The best of the third decade of above/ground press, 2003-2023 (Invisible Publishing). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics and Touch the Donkey. 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

This is mclennan’s sixty-eighth above/ground press chapbook, following edgeless : letters, (2023), The Alta Vista Improvements (2023), Autobiography (2022), the collaborative SOME LEAVES (with Gary Barwin; 2020), Twenty-one stories, (2020), Poems for Lunch Poems for SFU (2020), Somewhere in-between / cloud (2019), Study of a fox (2018), snow day (2018) and It’s still winter (2017).

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

some author activity: Niespodziany, Pakdel, Boyle, Campanello + mclennan,

Benjamin Niespodziany has four short poems up at The Poetry Project; Saba Pakdel has work in the new issue of Loft; Frances Boyle has new work in issue twenty-one of The Temz Review; Kimberly Campanello has a poem up at Granta; and rob mclennan has had another piece from his essay-in-progress on collaborating with Denver poet Julie Carr up on his clever substack.

Touch the Donkey: self-profile and the release of the second issue!

In case you've wondered why I felt such need to invent a new magazine, there is now a self-profile of Touch the Donkey over at Open Book: Ontario. You can even head directly to the website to see information on the second issue, and remain posted on updates on our brand-new Facebook group. And yes, Touch the Donkey is included in the annual above/ground press subscription, in case you were wondering.

Email rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com if you wish to be included on either the Touch the Donkey or above/ground press email lists for updates as well.

Watch the Touch the Donkey blog over the next few weeks for interviews with issue #2 contributors Pearl Pirie, David Peter Clark, Julie Carr, Susan Holbrook, Susanne Dyckman and Catherine Wagner!

Touch the Donkey. There's more than one way to get high, baby.

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.