some author activity: Ballard, Smith, Kaminski, Trivedi + Houbolt,

the livestream video for Kevin Opstedal and Micah Ballard's July 21, 2024 reading at Bird & Beckett Books, San Francisco is now online; Mahaila Smith is interviewed over at News & Press from The Future Fire; Megan Kaminski has poems from a new project forthcoming in Plant Perspectives; Amish Trivedi read some poems as part of the Disaster Research Center 60th Anniversary Workshop at the University of Delaware, now up on YouTube; and Kyla Houbolt has two new poems and a write-up newly posted at Moist Poetry Journal.

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: parizeau, mclennan, Kaminski, Johnson + Graham,

df parizeau is interviewed via the Chaudiere Books blog; rob mclennan has some new work up at Court Green, as well as an interview, conducted by Lisa Fishman; and Megan Kaminski also has some poems at Court Green; Chris Johnson has a poem up at Olney; and Lea Graham won the 2021 Michelle Boisseau Poetry Prize over at the Bear Review, where she was also interviewed.

some author activity: mclennan, Tate, Kaminski, Hunter, Reed, Mavreas + Desbarats,

above/ground authors rob mclennan, Bronwen Tate, Megan Kaminski and Carrie Hunter etc participate in the dusie kollektiv 9, as a tribute to the late Marthe Reed, with new chapbooks in tribute to Reed now online as free pdfs via DUSIE 22; Billy Mavreas has new visual work up at Train : a poetry journal; and Michelle Desbarats has new work in the Glebe Report.

some author activity: Unsworth, Kaminski, Tate + mclennan,

Lydia Unsworth has some new work in Riggwelter #22; Megan Kaminski is featured in rob mclennan's Spotlight series; Bronwen Tate is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and rob mclennan has a new poem up at Selcouth Station.

New Orleans Poetry Festival 2019: Hyland, Kaminski, Robinson, Rosenthal, Smith, Sweeney + Tate,

above/ground press authors MC Hyland, Megan Kaminski, Elizabeth Robinson, Sarah Rosenthal, Jessica Smith, Heather Sweeney and Bronwen Tate (as well as a whole slew of other writers) participate in the 2019 New Orleans Poetry Festival and Small Press Fair, which will be held from April 18-21, 2019. I might not be able to attend, but you should totally go! Check out the full schedule here.

some author activity: Kaminski, Collis, Rosenthal, Lederer + mclennan,

Another article on Megan Kaminski and her new above/ground press title appears, this time via The University Daily Kansan; Stephen Collis has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; Sarah Rosenthal has new work posted in all the sins; Katy Lederer is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and rob mclennan has a new poem over at his clever blog.

some author activity: Eleftherion, Kaminski, Reed + Barwin,

Melissa Eleftherion has some new work in issue #20 of the online Pretty Owl Poetry, as well as two new poems up at Nomadic Coffee; an article on the University of Kansas website features Megan Kaminski and her latest above/ground press chapbook; Jacket2 posted a short piece remembering the late poet Marthe Reed; and Gary Barwin is interviewed for the first in a new series of podcasts hosted by Hamilton Review of Books, conducted/hosted by Krista Foss.

above/ground press chapbook bundles in the 2018 Belladonna* auction!

above/ground press has donated six different above/ground press 2018 titles (three copies of each) for the sake of the 2018 Belladonna* auction!

To help support some of the work they do (check out their website to get a sense of it), you can bid on one of three identical bundles of above/ground press poetry chapbooks: MOTHER OF ALL, by Anna Gurton-Wachter; Each Acre, by Megan Kaminski; Seventeen Summers, by Cole Swensen; Everything will be taken away., by Julia Polyck-O’Neill; Twenty-Five, by Emily Izsak; and CONCEALED WEAPONS / ANIMAL SURVIVORS, by natalie hanna.

See the links to the three identical bundles here, here and here.

Now, yes, all of these titles are still in print, but why not see if you want to support Belladonna* in their glorious works?

You can always come back here after, and order titles individually, or simply pick up a 2019 above/ground press subscription. Right?

new from above/ground press: Each Acre, by Megan Kaminski

Each Acre
Megan Kaminski
$5

morning rain falling summer dark
bones to body   body to bone
I hear each dropfall each rivulet in lawn
coursing toward street to gutter
train-call in the distance calling me back
yellowed houses at the end of blocks
dead-ended on train-tracks 
whistle through summer nights

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover design: L. Ann Wheeler

Megan Kaminski is the author of two books of poetry, Deep City (Noemi Press, 2015) and Desiring Map (Coconut Books, 2012), with a third book Gentlewomen forthcoming from Noemi Press. She is an associate professor in the University of Kansas' Graduate Creative Writing Program and a Keeler Intra-University Professor studying trauma and healing in the School of Social Welfare. She also curates the Taproom Poetry Series in downtown Lawrence. Currently she is working on a book about indeterminacy, attraction, and plant thinking.

This is Kaminski’s second above/ground press chapbook, after Wintering Prairie (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: Norris, Eleftherion, Kaminski, Armantrout, Robinson + Graham,

Lea Graham wearing her fabulous new above/ground press t-shirt!

Ken Norris has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; Melissa Eleftherion has a new poem up at Swwim; Megan Kaminski has some new work up at Diagram; Rae Armantrout has a new poem up at Poetry; and Elizabeth Robinson has some new work up at Posit.

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: Pirie, Kaminski, Collis + Young,

Pearl Pirie gets a good write-up in The Kitchissippi Times; an audio interview with Megan Kaminski now exists over at Radio Free Albion; Stephen Collis is interviewed over at thecanadaproject; and Geoffrey Young has a new essay up at ottawa poetry newsletter.

some author activity: mclennan, Dyckman, Smith, Kaminski, Hogg + Turnbull,

rob mclennan was interviewed recently by Susanne Dyckman over at OmniVerse; he also has a new poem and a book recommendation via the Saskatoon Public Library website; Jessica Smith has some new poems up at past simple; Megan Kaminski has some poems in the new issue of Elderly; and there's an update on Robert Hogg's poem posted through Chris Turnbull's rout/e.

some author activity: Kaminski, Pirie, Sand, Mangold + Hall,

Megan Kaminski has a new poem at Alice Blue Review; Pearl Pirie has a new poem up at Paul Vermeersch's Sunrise with Sea Monsters; Kaia Sand has a new poem posted as part of the annual "advent calendar" at Delirious Hem; Sarah Mangold is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Phil Hall is Kroetsching the Long-Poem in spring 2016 via the Sage Hill Writing Experience.

some author activity: mclennan, Kaminski, Irwin, Pirie, Trivedi, Smith + Bowering,

rob mclennan has a new poem up at OUR TEETH; Megan Kaminski has a new poem up at Matter; Marilyn Irwin interviews Pearl Pirie; Amish Trivedi and Jessica Smith discuss Coven Press over at Boog City; and George Bowering is interviewed by Daniel Zomparelli and Dina Del Bucchia over at The Tyee.

some author activity: Earl, Barwin, Greenstreet, Kaminski + Poe,

Amanda Earl has a new poem featured online at Matrix magazine, and further work featured at Queen Mob's Teahouse; Gary Barwin is interviewed over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Kate Greenstreet interviews Megan Kaminski over at The Conversant; and Deborah Poe is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Trivedi, Kaminski, Abel, Earl + Nichol,

Amish Trivedi has published the chapbook-length sequence "21 Permutations" on his website; Megan Kaminski is interviewed over at Noemi Press; Jordan Abel is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Amanda Earl's essay, "Breaking the Narrative to Open Up the Poem," is now online at AngelHousePress; and the bpNichol online archive is alive again, with a mound of material newly available!

some author activity: Kaminski, beaulieu, Earl, McNair + Armantrout,

Megan Kaminski has some new work in the fifth issue of La Vague Journal; derek beaulieu's KERN 1 and KERN 2 are online at Poetry Magazine; Amanda Earl has a sequence from a work-in-progress of visual poems up at h&; Christine McNair is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Rae Armantrout has a new interview and five new poems over at Literary Hub.

Scott Bryson reviews Megan Kaminski’s Wintering Prairie (2014) in Broken Pencil #66

Scott Bryson was good enough to review Megan Kaminski’s Wintering Prairie (2014) in Broken Pencil #66. Thanks, Scott! This is the third review of Kaminski’s chapbook, after a mention of such by Jim McCrary, and a more formal review by Ryan Pratt.

There’s a preparatory tone in the first page of this long poem that lends itself well to the images of wintering conjured by its title (wintering: to lodge, keep, or care for during the winter). “This poem will be a long one,” warns Megan Kaminski, “will widen will drift like snow.”

            That drifting is accomplished in a literal sense through an absence of capitalization, and symbolically via Kaminski’s subject matter. Movement permeates nearly every line in Wintering Prairie: “Long shadows and sun melt spread / across lawns across asphalt / neighborhood strip mall and shop.” If it weren’t for the occasional interjection that reads like a prayer – “I carry absence / I carry want / I carry body ache / on this bright day” – Wintering Prairie might be the print version of an episode of The Nature of Things; it glides across the landscape and zooms in on a particular scene for a few moments, before flying away again.

            A few cringe-worthy misspellings of “arctic” (as “artic”) aside, Wintering Prairie is a slick and evocative read. It delivers on its promise to drift, but Kaminski’s reluctance to focus for very long on any singular sketch occasionally leads to large chunks of text blowing by with little absorption. It covers a lot of ground in a short time.