The Nelson Ball Prize: Margaret Christakos wins! and Peter Jaeger's shortlist write-up,

Congratulations to Toronto poet Margaret Christakos, who recently won The Nelson Ball Prize for That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press, 2024)! 2025 judges Bev Daurio and James McDonald included, as you might already know, Peter Jaeger's Selected Memoirs (above/ground press, 2024) on their shortlist, so here's the judge's citations for such (you can see the citations for all five of the shortlist titles, including Christakos', as well as a short interview with Christakos, here):

Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
by Peter Jaeger

Peter Jaeger is the author of several books and has written on a wide variety of topics, from ecology to John Cage. His chapbook Selected Memoirs addresses six and a half decades of one life, in thirty passages varying in length from twenty-five words to a couple of pages. Some passages cover several years, some only one. Much is missing; most of the life under consideration; yet the book feels complete and open at the same time. Its observations are as much by omission as by what they state; there are great gaps of time and context between some sections, between years, between sentences within entries. The passages and the spaces between them combine to create a perfect broken mashed-together record of existence, implying that much is forgotten.

Jaeger touches on the intellectual, the mundane, sweetness and regret, the greater world, the inner world, worlds imagined. There is a tipping between the real, and memory. Jaeger touches on horror (2001), a puzzling comment by a colleague (1997-98), unique experiences in the real world, "Scuba drift in the Red Sea" (2002-03) and times of want: "That winter Frank and I wore our heavy coats inside the house and clutched empty whiskey bottles filled with hot water to keep our hands warm." (1983).

Listing topics and descrying polarities and their subtle tensions, however, does not do the book justice, because so much of its joy is contained in its delicate, startling details and striking, unexpected shifts. The entry for 1966 reads: "Meditating in Bellwoods Park on a sunny afternoon in Toronto, I saw myself and the world as a continuous field of subatomic particles. I still remained deeply interested in the alphabet."

Although written in seemingly straightforward prose, Selected Memoirs is replete with moments of incredible writing, and a participatory poetics, where gaps and leaps ask the reader to consider all that is not there and what is hidden. Jaeger creates a small world of serenity, by turns warm, winsome, vulnerable, and quietly profound.

Peter Jaeger is on the 2025 Nelson Ball Prize short list! (along w Stebner, Christakos etc

Congratulations to the entire 2025 Nelson Ball Prize short list! (do you remember the longlist?) Naturally, it is very exciting to see an above/ground press title on the list, by Canadian poet Peter Jaeger, as well as titles by above/ground press authors Margaret Christakos (author of the 2019 title Retreat Diary 2019) and Kevin Stebner (author of the 2023 title AGALMA). In case you aren't aware:

The Nelson Ball Prize, worth $1,000, is awarded annually to a Canadian poet for a published work that features 'poetry of observation.' * The judges this year are James McDonald and Beverley Daurio. Stay tuned for announcement of the winning publication in the first week of December.

Here's the full list of shortlisted titles:

Margaret Christakos, That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press)
Jeremy Clarke, Stone Hours (Rufus Books)
Peter Jaeger, Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
Kevin Stebner, Inherent (Assembly Press)
Michael Trussler, 10:10 (Icehouse Poetry)

Peter Jaeger is on the 2025 Nelson Ball Prize long list! (along w Stebner, Robinson, Christakos etc

Congratulations to the entire 2025 Nelson Ball Prize long list! Naturally, it is very exciting to see an above/ground press title on the list, by Canadian poet Peter Jaeger, as well as titles by above/ground press authors Margaret Christakos (author of the 2019 title Retreat Diary 2019), Ben Robinson (author of three above/ground press titles, most recently the 2023 title Between the Lakes) and Kevin Stebner (author of the 2023 title AGALMA). In case you aren't aware:

The Nelson Ball Prize, worth $1,000, is awarded annually to a Canadian poet for a published work that features 'poetry of observation.' * The judges this year are James McDonald and Beverley Daurio. Stay tuned for the Short List, and then the announcement of the winning publication.

Here's the full list of longlisted titles:

Margaret Christakos, That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press)
Jeremy Clarke, Stone Hours (Rufus Books)
Peter Jaeger, Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
Dawn Macdonald, Northerny (University of Alberta Press)
Michael Ondaatje, A Year of Last Things (McClelland & Stewart)
Ben Robinson, As Is (ARP Books)
Angeline Schellenberg, Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press)
Kevin Stebner, Inherent (Assembly Press)
Michael Trussler, 10:10 (Icehouse Poetry)
Matthew Walsh, Terrarium (Icehouse Poetry)

some author activity: Deutch, Arnott, Betts, mclennan, Christakos, Robinson, Jirgens + Smith,

Amanda Deutch has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; Joanne Arnott has been named a "Life Member" of The League of Canadian Poets; Gregory Betts has new work and a short write-up on NFTs online at Rattle; rob mclennan has new work in horseshoe journal here and here, as well as a brand-new substack post from "Lecture for an Empty Room"; and Margaret Christakos and Ben Robinson both have new work in Hamilton Arts & Letters, which also includes a conversation between Karl Jirgens and Steven Ross Smith on their ongoing fictions.

some author activity: Barkman, Pirie, Prime + Christakos,

Carla Barkman (the poet formerly known as Carla Milo) is currently being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Pearl Pirie is interviewed by Bill Arnott; Tom Prime is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Margaret Christakos has some new work up at Canthius.

some author activity: dueck, Christakos, Beaulieu + Cooley,

; nathan dueck has a new poem up at The Pi Review; Margaret Christakos is interviewed by Uchechukwu Umezurike over at PRISM International; Derek Beaulieu did an online reading (posted at YouTube) via Kelly Writers House, with a post-reading Q+A conducted by Al Filreis; and Dennis Cooley is interviewed at Amanda Earl's podcast, The Small Machine Talks.

Gary Barwin : Recommended Reading : Simina Banu + Margaret Christakos

Our pal (and above/ground press author) Gary Barwin was good enough to mention a couple of above/ground press titles--Simina Banu's Tomorrow, adagio (2019) and Margaret Christakos' Retreat Diary 2019 (2019)--as part of a list of "Recommended Reading" over at The Fiddlehead; thanks so much! You can see his original post and list here (including titles by Derek Beaulieu, Anthony Etherin, Gregory Betts, Mark Laba and Tanis MacDonald). As he writes:

Simina Banu: Tomorrow, adagio (above/ground press)

Mesmerizingly preternatural, strange and in the uncanny valley between senselessness music and touchingly lyric, Banu’s chapbook is a series of phonic, visual, and sometimes literal translations of Mihai Eminescu’s poetry. Set in the present and in an oblique literary past, these poems are resonant, surprising, and inventive.

Margaret Christakos: Retreat Diary 2019 (above/ground press)

This suite of poems pulsates with the vibrant intelligence, music, tactility and sense of being-in-the-world that is characteristic Christakos. The lines are energized and self-aware. We are always/already writing/reading/poeming, retreating and advancing through language. And we communicate and wrestle and dance with communication and the problem/possibility of communication through (social) media, language, received notions of self, our culture and the world.  

new from above/ground press: Retreat Diary 2019, by Margaret Christakos

Retreat  Diary  2019
Margaret Christakos
$5

as  if  repeating  the  same  song  is  a  decent
strategy  for  building  a  blue  nest  in  thin  air
Nest  that  has  found  its  mourning  in  me
Mourning  that  has  turned  on  a  lathe  like
a  long  pull-whistle  carved  in  a  small  shop
by  someone  who  had  no  grandchild  to
apprentice  &  lake  contains  the  recording
technology  to  archive  the  young  gull's  song
which  is  hysterical  by  now,  which  is  full-out
incessant,  turbulent,  frightened,  hastened,
breath-parched,  adhesive,  hopeful,  hopeless,
hope-filled,  hope-gutted,  bathed  in  hope,
drowned  in  itself  yet  delivered  to
acoustic  sky  with  muscular  chest-bobs
&  a  rotational  tour  of  the  bay's  gloss     /

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Margaret Christakos is the author of ten collections of poetry, a novel & an intergenre memoir. She performs digital photo circuits on social media to think about the poetics of direct and indirect address. Recent books include Multitudes (Coach House) and Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex/Blood/Loss & Selfies (Book*Hug) as well as the chapbook Social Medea vs. Virtual Medusa (Gap Riot Press). Two collections are forthcoming: charger (Talon Books) and Dear Birch (Palimpsest Press). She hails from Sudbury ON & lives in Toronto.

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

Cordite Poetry Review: Robertson, beaulieu, Abel, Christie, Bolster + Barton,

As part of the collaboration between Arc Poetry Magazine and Cordite Poetry Review, the new issue of Cordite, "Oh Canada," includes work by a variety of above/ground press authors including Lisa Robertson, derek beaulieu, Jordan Abel, Jason Christie, Stephanie Bolster and John Barton, as well as work by non-above/ground press authors (as yet) Margaret Christakos, Stephen Collis, Sharon Thesen, Sachiko Murakami, Sonnet L'Abbé, Sandy Pool, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Aisha Sasha John and much much much more. Go read it now!

The Factory Reading Series @ VERSeFest: Marilyn Irwin and Margaret Christakos, March 29, 2014!

The Factory Reading Series
as part of the fourth annual VERSeFest poetry festival presents:

The Factory Reading Series Lecture Series, two talks and readings by:

    Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa ON)
    and Margaret Christakos (Toronto ON)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan,
Saturday, March 29, 2014
FREE ADMISSION!
4pm at The Mercury Lounge, 56 Byward Market Square, Ottawa
check the VERSeFest link for the full schedule of events!
March 25-30, 2013

The winner of Arc Poetry Magazine’s 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, Marilyn Irwin’s work has been published by above/ground press, Arc, Bywords, and New American Writing. A graduate of Algonquin College’s Creative Writing program, she has three chapbooks: for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012), and little nothings (2012).

Margaret Christakos [pictured] is an accomplished Canadian poet and fiction writer who has published nine collections of poetry and a novel. Her most recent collections are Multitudes, from Coach House Books in Fall 2013, and Welling, Your Scrivener Press (2010, a Globe 100 Book). Previous books include What Stirs (2008) and Sooner (2005), from Coach House, both nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award; Excessive Love Prostheses, winner of the ReLit Award (Coach House, 2002); and Charisma, a novel from Pedlar in 2000, shortlisted for the Ontario Trillium Book Award. She has also been the recipient of the Bliss Carman Award for Poetry. Christakos is anthologized in Prismatic Publics: Innovative Canadian Women’s Poetry and Poetics (Coach House, 2009), White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood (Demeter Press, 2007), Plural Desires: Writing Bisexual Women’s Realities (Sister Vision, 1995) and ditch: the anthology (online at www.ditchpoetry.com/anthology.htm). Her chapbooks include My Girlish Feast (Belladonna, 2007), Retreat Diary (Book Thug, 2007), Adult Video (Nomados, 2008) and Something Inside Me (in case of emergency press, 2008). She was CC Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor in 2004-05 and has delivered poetry seminars, workshops and readings across Canada and in the U.S. as a visiting poet and speaker since 1989. She has received significant arts grant support from provincial and federal arts councils, and, in 2012, she was the recipient of a major Chalmers Arts Fellowship. Born and raised in Sudbury, she lives in Toronto.