new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #29; stay-at-home issue

The Peter F Yacht Club #29
stay-at-home issue
edited by rob mclennan
$5

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars and irregulars, in lieu of our annual seasonal reading/regatta/party [see the report on last year's event here]: Cameron Anstee, Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, Anita Dolman, Amanda Earl, natalie hanna, Marilyn Irwin, Robert Hogg, rob mclennan, Pearl Pirie, Monty Reid, Stuart Ross, D.S. Stymeist and VII.

See link to The Peter F Yacht Club #28: the VERSeFest 2020 (10th anniversary!) special / [ c a n c e l l a t i o n / p o s t p o n e m e n t  i s s u e ] here

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

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

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.

The Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta: a report,

How many years have we been doing this now? The first holiday season event we did was most likely back in 2005, so we’ve been doing this for some time, and this past Saturday night was brilliantly fun, with a more lively crowd than usual, and readings by Yacht Club regulars and irregulars Stephen Brockwell, D.S. Stymeist, Frances Boyle, Conyer Clayton, Michelle Desbarats, Robert Hogg, Marilyn Irwin, Chris Johnson, Margo LaPierre, myself, Lee Parpart, David A. Epstein, Monty Reid and Chris Turnbull, who was accompanied by the pre-recorded voice of collaborator Bruno Neiva.  

Stephen Brockwell

As part of my introductions, I spoke of how The Peter F. Yacht Club originally began as an informal group that met to discuss writing back in 1999, morphing into a journal back in 2003 (which still produces an issue for each edition of VERSeFest). One could describe the entire history of The Peter F. Yacht Club as a way for a small group of us to engage with each other’s work, and get a sense of what each other’s current projects might be. So, what are you working on?

The room was packed! It was good to see so many people I feel I haven’t seen in some time, including Pearl Pirie, Jennifer Pederson, David O’Meara, Rachel Zavitz, Jean Van Loon, Grant Wilkins, Laurie Koensgen, Cathy McDonald-Zytveld and Mia Morgan. Unfortunately, Christine McNair and natalie hanna had to send their last-minute regrets (and were missed, obviously).

Robert Hogg (seated) speaking to Craig Carpenter

What was interesting, also, was that Craig Carpenter, a poet I haven’t seen or heard much from in some twenty years (since he left Ottawa for parts unknown) appeared out of the ether to record the audio of the event. The final editor of the late, lamented Carleton Arts Review back in the late 1990s (not long after my own tenure as same), he was in Ottawa throughout the 1990s in part as a student at Carleton University, writing poems as a member of Jim Larwill’s informal writing group, the OmniGothic NeoFuturists (you’ll have to find Jim to find out what he thought that all meant). Apparently Carpenter is currently in Kelowna, British Columbia at UBC, working with Karis Shearer, and assisting in digital transfer of literary readings from dozens of archived cassette tapes (etcetera).

D.S. Stymeist

Stephen Brockwell opened the event with three really sharp poems produced in homage, including one for Stuart Ross [one of the readers at last year’s event] and another for his mentor, Peter Van Toorn, all of which I hope to see in print soon. How does his work manage to remain so sharp? D.S. Stymeist, author of a debut collection from Frontenac House, read a couple of poems from his current work-in-progress, resting behind the bar for both support and added effect. Frances Boyle included a couple of poems from her new poetry title, This White Nest, recently out with Quattro Books (and she has a collection of short stories out this spring with The Porcupine’s Quill, Inc., also). And Conyer Clayton read from a selection of prose poems, including from her most recent above/ground press title (and did you know she has a full-length debut out this spring?).

Michelle Desbarats

Michelle Desbarats is utterly delightful, and it was grand to hear her read from new poems, especially with the admission that she is working on a new manuscript. Can it already have been more than twenty years since the appearance of her debut? I would love to be able to produce another chapbook as well (to follow this one I produced around the same time as her debut). I’ve also been very pleased to see the re-emergence of Robert Hogg over the past couple of years [see my review of his two latest chapbooks here], and his poem playing with the Robert Creeley phrase, “Dig-it,” was amazing.

Margo LaPierre

Chris Johnson read two poems that included raccoons. Is this a new theme, a new thread, emerging in his work? And Margo LaPierre read some new poems that sparkled. I’ve only heard her read a couple of times now, so clearly need to hear further, to get a better sense of what it is she’s working on. I also read a couple of poems, from my work-in-progress “Book of Magazine Verse” [some poems from the same manuscript live here], including one for Frank O’Hara’s birthday (which I have already scheduled to post on my own blog in March, for O’Hara’s actual birthday; watch for it).

Lee Parpart

Lee Parpart was in town from Toronto, and read a couple of poems, which was fun, as did her American pal, poet David A. Epstein, who not only read a couple of curious poems, but offered an invitation to us Ottawa “Peter F. Yacht Clubbers” to their Connecticut Yacht Club. Oh, the boating we could do. And Monty Reid regaled us with a sequence around sex, constructed from stories heard and collected.

a very attentive audience

The collaboration between Chris Turnbull and Portugese poet Bruno Neiva sound fascinating (apparently there’s already a chapbook produced of such I have yet to get my hands on); Chris was able to provide some audio of Neiva reading some selections from their work-in-progress, and then Chris read a couple.

Monty Reid

listening to Bruno Neiva's audio

It was a grand event! I am very pleased, and also, very exhausted. And then a group of us landed downstairs, for lengthy conversation and hijinks. How did I only manage to get home at 1:30am?

report: the above/ground press 26th anniversary reading/launch/party!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out this past weekend to the above/ground press 26th anniversary reading/launch/party over at Vimy Brewing Company! (and can you believe the 26th anniversary BIG SUMMER SALE ends today? I mean, really...) It was a grand event, celebrating twenty-six years of continuous activity and nearly a thousand (so far) publications going all the way back to those wayward days of summer 1993 (according to a poster, the first official event was July 9, 1993, back before most of you, and now, a couple of above/ground press authors, were even born). I've posted a couple of reports over the years from anniversary events (but never as many as I probably should), including the 25th anniversary (but not the second one, from the ottawa international writers festival, unfortunately), the twenty-third anniversary (including the Toronto event that same year) and the nineteenth anniversary (where are the rest? oh, the days and the years get away from me). Thanks so much to everyone who came out to read, listen and otherwise assist and help celebrate! (and to Pearl and Brian Pirie, who were kind enough to provide photos.)

photo by Pearl Pirie

I wore my snappy "above/ground press" t-shirt produced for last year's event (by Troublemaker Print!) but couldn't get anyone to purchase any (although more than a couple of attendees and readers wore theirs from last year). You can dress like me! I offered. That's not a selling point! Anita Dolman kept yelling, from the back of the room. I disagree, obviously (might it have helped if I'd shaved? No time! No time).

Christine was, of course, home resting given her recent medical thingies, but otherwise well. But there were a great deal of others around to assist in the above/ground press mayhem, including natalie hanna (who kindly worked the door), Anita Dolman (who kindly worked the book table for the second year in a row), Robert Hogg, Roland Prevost, Janice Tokar, Stephen Brockwell, Jean Van Loon, Grant Savage, Michelle Desberats, Hugh Thomas and maria erskine, jwcurry and plenty of others. It was a good crowd.

photo by Pearl Pirie

The first reader of the evening was Marilyn Irwin, who read from her fourth above/ground press title (and ninth chapbook overall), the day the moon went away, a chapbook already being discussed as her strongest work-to-date. There is something really powerful happening in Irwin's poems these days; crafting a rawness into shapes that feel effortless, and serene (and so obviously are not).  

photo by Brian Pirie

Pearl Pirie launched Eldon, letters, her fifth above/ground press chapbook, made up of a chapbook-length epistle to her late father, which included photographs and other archive materials alongside a lyric prose composed directly to him, that loss and some unanswered questions. Pearl was, also, easily the best dressed in the room (an idea everyone in the room easily agreed with).

photo by Pearl Pirie

I was very taken with Stuart Ross' latest, NINETY TINY POEMS, which is his second above/ground press collection (have you seen the blog I curate celebrating the fortieth anniversary of his own chapbook enterprise, Proper Tales Press?). Composed of nine poems, each of which has ten tiny sections, he had joked that he was working on a manuscript of "one thousand tiny poems," which might not actually be completed (but held to this singular chapbook). After the reading, he said that the positive response to the poems and his reading made him reconsider this idea (I would be very interested to see how far he might be able to go with this; wouldn't you want to see what Ross could do with ONE THOUSAND TINY POEMS? Honestly: who wouldn't? And if someone wouldn't, would you even want to know that person?).

photo by Pearl Pirie

Stuart's reading bled directly into Conyer Clatyon's reading, as Conyer appeared at the podium for the sake of an improvised collaborative sound poem or two with Stuart, before Stuart left the stage, and sat down. And Conyer begin to read from her above/ground press debut, Trust Only the Beasts in the Water. There is something about Conyer's prose poems I'm quite fond of, the flow of them; and it makes me curious to see her full-length debut next year, appearing with Guernica Editions.

photo by Pearl Pirie

After a wee break, there was Kyle Kinaschuk, who was good enough to travel from Toronto to read from his chapbook debut, COLLECTIONS-14. Given I hadn't heard him read before, let alone hadn't actually met him yet, I was curious to hear how he might perform some of these works. He did a magnificent job, speaking a bit to the compositional process of writing poems prompted by his father's death, and the baffles he utilized for the poems, put together from details of his father's life. He had mentioned that this was one section of what might be a book-length quartet of sections, and I am very much looking forward to seeing what that might look like.

photo by Pearl Pirie

Hamilton writer Gary Barwin (who also has a chapbook press, serif of nottingham, which turns (or turned) thirty-four years old this year) read, as part of his set to launch Dust of the Wren: poems and translations, a selection of unpublished pieces, suggesting that part of the appeal of the chapbook form is the quick ease with which new work can be disseminated. I'm absolutely fascinated with Barwin's comfort in visual poetry and surrealist lyric even as he has become the author of bestselling fiction, with a new novel already slated with Random House for 2021; and did you know he has a selected poems out this fall? There is an awful lot going on with his work, so it is very exciting to see it finally being taken seriously.

photo by Pearl Pirie

One of my favourites is Kemptville poet Chris Turnbull, who has long been, quietly and confidently, working in large forms utilizing lyric, the fragment and visual elements against ecological concerns. Did you see the piece I did on her work for Jacket2 magazine a while back? This chapbook, contrite, is the second of a projected trio of linked works, following Candid, a title produced as part of one of the dusie kollektivs (a work that is available free online, also).
 
There. Don't you feel bad you missed it all now? We will just have to do another for next year, then!

And should I mention: the event was successful enough I immediately took three more chapbooks to the printer the following day? And am preparing two more?

And: watch this space for the announcement for 2020 above/ground press subscriptions, yes? Sometime over the next month or so. I mean: the press produced sixty-seven chapbooks last year, so the subscription rate is a pretty good deal, I must say...

new from above/ground press: the day the moon went away, by Marilyn Irwin

the day the moon went away
Marilyn Irwin
$5

ant moth

an ant

trudging

the length

of a kitchen sill

a moth

on its back

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
 
Shortlisted for the 2016 bpNichol Award and winner of the 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, Marilyn Irwin’s work has been published by Apt. 9 Press, Arc Poetry Magazine, bywords.ca, Hussy Press, Puddles of Sky, and The Steel Chisel, among others. the day the moon went away is her ninth chapbook, and fourth published by above/ground press. She runs shreeking violet press in Ottawa.

This is Irwin’s fourth chapbook with above/ground press, after for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012) and north (2017).

[Marilyn Irwin will be launching in Ottawa on August 10th as part of the above/ground press 26th anniversary launch/reading/party]

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

the above/ground press 26th anniversary reading/launch/party!

celebrating twenty-six years of continuous activity (and nearly a thousand publications), Ottawa publisher above/ground press presents:

seven readings and chapbook launches by:

Conyer Clayton (Ottawa)
Kyle Kinaschuk (Toronto)
Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa)
Gary Barwin (Hamilton)
Pearl Pirie (Ottawa)
Chris Turnbull (Kemptville)
+
Stuart Ross (Cobourg)

lovingly hosted by above/ground press editor/publisher rob mclennan
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2019
Vimy Brewing Company
145 Loretta Ave N #1, Ottawa, ON K1Y 2J7
http://www.vimybrewing.ca/
7pm door/7:30pm reading

$6 at the door; includes a copy of a recent above/ground press title

THIS EVENT WILL ALSO INCLUDE LAST YEAR'S LIMITED-EDITION T-SHIRTS, PRODUCED BY OTTAWA’S OWN TROUBLEMAKER PRINT 
https://www.facebook.com/TroublemakerPrint/

AND I EVEN STILL HAVE A COUPLE OF THOSE 25TH ANNIVERSARY BROADSIDES WE MADE LAST YEAR

And don't forget the BIG SUMMER SALE, going on until August 15th!

author/performer biographies:

Conyer Clayton is an Ottawa based artist who aims to live with compassion, gratitude, and awe. Her most recent chapbooks are: / (post ghost press, 2019), Undergrowth (bird, buried press), Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press), and For the Birds. For the Humans. (battleaxe press). She released a collaborative album with Nathanael Larochette, If the river stood still, in August 2018. She won Arc's 2017 Diana Brebner Prize, 3rd place in Prairie Fire's 2017 Poetry Contest, and honourable mention in The Fiddlehead's 2018 poetry prize. She is a member of the sound poetry ensemble Quatuor Gualuor, and writes reviews for Canthius. Her debut full length collection of poetry is forthcoming in Spring 2020.

She will be launching her above/ground press debut, Trust Only the Beasts in the Water (2019).

Kyle Kinaschuk is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Toronto, where he researches the politics and form of lament in contemporary poetry situated within Canada. His poetry has appeared in journals such as The Capilano Review, filling Station, PRISM international, The Puritan, Hart House Review, Poetry is Dead, and FreeFall Magazine.

He will launching his above/ground press debut, COLLECTIONS-14 (2019), a chapbook produced to coincide with TEXT / SOUND / PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space, a conference held at UCD, Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019.

Shortlisted for the 2016 bpNichol Award and winner of the 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, Marilyn Irwin’s work has been published by Apt. 9 Press, Arc Poetry Magazine, bywords.ca, Hussy Press, Puddles of Sky, and The Steel Chisel, among others. the day the moon went away is her ninth chapbook, and fourth published by above/ground press. She runs shreeking violet press in Ottawa.

She will be launching the day the moon went away (2019), Irwin’s fourth chapbook with above/ground press, after for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012) and north (2017).

The author of twenty-two books of poetry and fiction, Gary Barwin is a writer, musician and multimedia artist from Hamilton, Ontario and the author of the nationally bestselling novel, Yiddish for Pirates (Random House) which won the Leacock Medal for Humour and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and was a finalist for the Governor-General’s Literary Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His poetry includes No TV for Woodpeckers (poetry; Wolsak & Wynn, 2018), many chapbooks some with his own serif of nottingham editions, and, forthcoming, A Cemetery for Holes, a poetry collaboration with Tom Prime (Gordon Hill Press, 2019), Muttertongue (book/recording with Lillian Allen and Gregory Betts (Book*hug, 2019) and For It is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems, ed. Alessandro Porco (Wolsak and Wynn, 2019.) A new novel,  Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted will appear from Random House in 2021. garybarwin.com

He will be launching Dust of the Wren: poems and translations (2019), a chapbook produced for the sake of the author’s participation in the TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space conference at University College Dublin, Ireland, April 25-27, 2019. This is his fifth above/ground press chapbook, after “SYNONYMS FOR FISH,” STANZAS #26 (March, 2001), Seedpod, Microfiche (2013) and the collaborative PLEASURE BRISTLES (with Alice Burdick; 2018) and gravitynipplemilk anthroposcenesters (with Tom Prime; 2018).

Pearl Pirie has 3 poetry collections with a forthcoming in the fall of 2020 from Radiant Press. These haibun are unrelated to those. She gives workshops and readings sporadically. She lives in rural Quebec with her brilliant husband, scratchy cat and sweet dog. She can be found on twitter @pesbo and you can sign up for her mailing list at www.pearlpirie.com

She will be launching Eldon, letters (2019), her fifth chapbook with above/ground press, after the oath in the boathouse (2008), vertigoheel for the dilly (2014), today’s woods (2014) and sex in sevens (2016).

Chris Turnbull is the author of continua (Chaudiere Books 2015; now a homestay at Invisible Press 2019) and [ untitled ] in o w n (CUE Books 2014). She has published several chapbooks: Shingles (Thuja1999); continua 1-22 (above/ground 2010); and Candid (hawkweed 2019). Undertones, a collaboration with text/artist Bruno Neiva, is forthcoming in summer/fall 2019 with Low Frequency Press (Buffalo). Other visual and text based work and collaborations can be found online, in print, and within landscapes. She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poems are planted on trails: www.etuor.wordpress.com. A collaborative hapbook with a rawlings, The Great Canadian (Low Frequency Press 2016), combined Turnbull’s photographs from rout/e with rawlings’ text from her ongoing echolology. Candid was previously published as part of Dusie Kollective #8 and is also online at http://dusie.blogspot.com/2016/12/dusie-kollektiv-8-curated-by-rob.html. It is the first of three interconnected chapbooks. contrite follows Candid much like a riffle: “guess a spokesperson of it all” was published as a broadside in above/ground press’ 25th Anniversary collection (2019); other pieces were published in The Capilano Review 3.35 (Spring 2018) and Café Review (Spring 2019: ed. Bob Hogg).

She will be launching contrite (2019), her second chapbook with above/ground press, after continua 1-22 (2010).

Stuart Ross is the author of 20 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and countless chapbooks and ephemera. His most recent books include the novel-in-prose-poems Pockets (ECW Press, 2017) and the poetry collections Motel of the Opposable Thumbs (Anvil Press, 2019) and A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (Wolsak and Wynn, 2016), which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry in 2017. Other titles include the poetry collection A Hamburger in a Gallery (DC Books, 2015), the novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew (ECW Press, 2011), and the story collection Buying Cigarettes for the Dog (Freehand Books, 2009). Stuart began his literary career by selling his self-published chapbooks on the streets of Toronto during the 1980s, wearing signs like “Writer Going To Hell: Buy My Books.” He was the 2010 Writer in Residence at Queen’s University, and has taught writing workshops across Canada. His poetry has recently been translated into French and Slovenian; other translations, into Nynorsk and Spanish, are in progress. His micropress, Proper Tales, is currently celebrating its 40th year of publishing. Stuart lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

He will be launching 90 TINY POEMS (2019), his second chapbook with above/ground press, after ESPESANTES (2018).

And you remember how much fun last year's event was, yes?

The Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta : a report,

Friday night was our annual Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta, once again in our usual space in Parkdale Market's Carleton Tavern [see last year's report here], held as the "office Christmas party" for our informal writer's grouping.

The evening held a myriad of short readings by PFYC regulars, including Amanda Earl, Monty Reid, Frances Boyle, Pearl Pirie and myself, as well as special guests Stuart Ross and PFYC founding member Laurie Anne Fuhr, launching her first trade collection! As with an event like this, there were absences a-plenty, as Jason Christie, Chris Turnbull, Anita Dolman, James Moran, Cameron Anstee, Vivian Vavassis, D.S. Stymiest, Roland Prevost and Janice Tokar simply couldn't make it. And of course, Marilyn Irwin had put herself down as a "maybe" to read, and then I completely forgot to put her on the set list (dammit!). (I'll just have her read twice next year.)

Originally, natalie hanna and Chris Johnson were also on the bill, but natalie had to send her regrets (Chris was simply a no-show; where did he go?).

Christine and our young ladies had been there as well, but just up to the point of the readings, when they wandered home for bedtime, which meant, among other things, Christine wasn't able to read. Given the day allowed me to get to the tavern for 3pm for the sake of some writing time, Christine and the wee girls came by around 5pm to join me for dinner, before we headed upstairs to prepare for the event (and the girls danced/ran laps around the room). They also spent a great deal of time attempting to eat further of the lemon icebox cookies I had made that morning.

The house was packed! A crowd that included Robert Hogg, Stephen Brockwell, Michael Dennis, Avonlea Fotheringham, Jenna Jarvis (all the way from the east), Claire Farley, Craig Simon, Grant Savage (who most likely took photos far superior to these), allison calvern, jesslyn delia smith, Steve Zytveld + Cathy MacDonald-Zytveld, Grant Wilkins, Brian Pirie, Kees Kapteyn, jwcurry and plenty of others. Huzzah!

Amanda Earl was good enough to read from her broadside produced as part of the above/ground press 25th anniversary; Pearl Pirie read from two new chapbooks, including one self-produced as a give-away for the event; Monty Reid read from his new above/ground press title, produced as the final item of 2018, composing a sequence on the underground seams of coal throughout Alberta that occasionally catch fire; Frances Boyle read an excerpt from her recently-published novella; and Stuart Ross, who originally hadn't planned on reading, was convinced (with some slight prompting) to read a couple of pieces, including the handout he made for the event. Pearl, as well, was good enough to provide a hat for readers (most of whom declined), a hat she'd only been meaning to bring to the event for years.

It was very cool to be able to host Calgary-based Laurie Anne Fuhr and the launch of her first full-length poetry collection. A founding member of The Peter F. Yacht Club, way back in 1999 when all of this nonsense began [see the short history I posted on the group back in 2010 here], it was grand to be able to hear her read (and an impressive reading it was! she even managed to slip a drink order to bartender Derek mid-poem, in the most casual way), especially given she isn't able to make it back this way as often as she'd like.

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Marilyn Irwin

This is the thirty-seventh in a series of short essays/reminiscences by a variety of authors and friends of the press to help mark the quarter century mark of above/ground. See links to the whole series here.

above ground press: a quarter century of community and paper cuts

It is hard to consider above/ground press without considering the man who created it and has kept it the well-oiled machine it has been for 25 years now.

The first time I heard about rob was at a book store in Alexandria, Ontario, about 12 years ago. I randomly picked up one of his books off the shelf in the poetry section after a five year hiatus from writing post-high school. The cashier gushed how rob was from the area and looked just like he did in the photo on the back of the book. I bought the book.

The first time I met rob was at a reading of his when I first moved to Ottawa in 2007. He was launching his novel white and about to move out west for a year as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta. I purchased a copy of his book and someone (Ottawa poet Amanda Earl?) told me he would be happy to sign it. I was (still can be) debilitatingly shy but managed to approach him. He inscribed it as follows: “for Marilyn, who I do not know”. As he was packing up the book table, he handed me “a thing,” as he put it. Truth be told, I don’t remember if it was a broadside or a chapbook but it was an above/ground press publication. After the reading, a handful of people went out for drinks at the Dom (Dominion Tavern); Amanda, husband Charles, Pearl and Brian Pirie, Max Middle, Joshua Massey, rob and me. It would be the first of many shenanigans centred around poetry, around this person, a personified nexus, who seemed to know everyone in the local and farther reaching community and who had the stories to prove it. Soon after, rob started handing me envelopes at literary events stuffed to the gills with above/ground press goodies. This was how I came to know the Ottawa poetry community and beyond.

I have lost count of the number of Factory Reading Series events rob has organized in the 10ish years I’ve been going to them but they are usually like family reunions. rob brings people together. rob has and continues to make things easy for us all to find one another – even in this digital age – to trade or buy each other’s books and, often, has been the catalyst for new acquaintances, friendships and lovers (for better or worse). Without rob’s efforts; his publishing, events, encouragement/coaxing of new, emerging and established poets to put new work out into the world, without his workshops (which I’ve taken a few times and totally recommend) and the ottawa small press book fair and reviews and essays, etc., etc., etc., the Ottawa and Canadian poetry communities would look very differently. Personally, my knowledge of the literary landscape would be much less informed. And he has made it all look easy, though I can only imagine how many long-armed staplers he’s been through in the past quarter century or how many paper cuts he’s had or grocery bills he’s tightened to subsidize putting poetry goodness into the world.

rob was kind enough to reprint my first (self-published) chapbook in 2010, shortly after he invited me to read at a Factory event – my first official reading alongside stellar poets Marcus McCann and Cameron Anstee. I have since had seven more chapbooks, two published through above/ground, in no small part due to his gentle nagging for new work from me.

I owe a debt of gratitude to you, rob, for helping me get this far despite my mountains of reservations. So, thanks, rob, who I know, for all that you do and congratulations on such a fine achievement!

I have often heard rob say something to the effect of “I enjoy what I do so why would I stop?” Here’s hoping he continues to enjoy doing what he does; I can’t wait to see what the next 25 years bring.

Shortlisted for the 2016 bpNichol Award and winner of the 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, Marilyn Irwin’s [photo credit: John W. MacDonald] work has been published by Apt. 9 Press, Arc Poetry Magazine, bywords.ca, In/Words, Puddles of Sky, and The Steel Chisel, among others. north, her eighth chapbook, and third published by above/ground press, was released in 2017. She runs shreeking violet press in Ottawa.

Irwin’s three chapbooks through above/ground press include for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012) and north (2017).