some author activity: Banks, Shirley, Unrau, Betts, Barwin + Carpenter,

Chris Banks offers his "best Canadian poetry books of 2025" list, via The Woodlot; Vik Shirley has a new poem up at Burning House Press; Melanie Dennis Unrau is included in the Canadian Poets Series via Peripety and/or Tronies; Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts and Lillian Allen are interviewed on their Muttertongue collaborative projects by Hollay Ghadery for the New Books Network podcast; and J.R. Carpenter has two poems online at The Manchester Review.

some author activity: Smith, Unrau, Bell, Myers + Ross,

Steve Ross Smith has a new song up at bandcamp; Melanie Dennis Unrau is interviewed via the "12 or 20 questions" series; Wade Bell has new work up at Public Reverie; Peter Myers has new work up at noir sauna; and Stuart Ross is interviewed by Tali Voron-Leiderman for The Ampersand Review.

some author activity: Mc Donnell, Caporaso, Levy, Deutch, Unrau, Logan + Pirie,

Conor Mc Donnell has a new essay up at Chris Banks' new online journal, The Woodlot; Angela Caporaso and forthcoming author John Levy both have poems in the new issue of talking about strawberries all of the time; Amanda Deutch has new work at Warmly Zine; and Melanie Dennis Unrau, Nate Logan and Pearl Pirie each have new poems up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month!

2023 #AWP (unofficial) offsite (virtual) readings : day one of five: Witek/Lopes, Robinson, Melançon, Unrau + Chernoff,

As part of the above/ground press thirtieth anniversary, I thought it would be both interesting and amusing to host a virtual (and unaffiliated) offsite reding as part of this year’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual Conference and Bookfair. While I’ve never actually attended myself (being unaffiliated with any organization that might assist with funds to attend such a thing), it does seem like a pretty cool destination. An Ottawa one would be cool; should they just host an Ottawa one? Until then, I suppose, something like this might have to suffice.

US poet Terri Witek (terriwitek.com) and Brazilian visual artist Cyriaco Lopes (cyriacolopes.com) have collaborated since 2005--their works together include museum and gallery shows, performance and site-specific projects featured internationally in New York, Seoul, Miami, Crete, Manchester, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, and Valencia. Witek holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University in Florida, and Lopes is an art professor at CUNY John Jay in New York City. Together they teach Poetry in the Expanded Field in Stetson’s low-residency MFA of the Americas. Their collaborative projects are represented by the liminal (Valencia Spain).

 

Jérôme Melançon writes and teaches and writes and lives in oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina, SK. His most recent chapbook is with above/ground press, Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (2022, after 2020’s Coup), and his most recent poetry collection is En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021). He has also published two books of poetry with Éditions des Plaines, De perdre tes pas (2011) and Quelques pas quelque part (2016), as well as one book of philosophy, La politique dans l’adversité (Metispresses, 2018). He has edited books and journal issues, and keeps publishing academic articles that have nothing to do with any of this. He’s on Twitter mostly, and sometimeson Instagram, both at @lethejerome.

Ben Robinson is a poet, musician and librarian. His most recent publication is Without Form from The Blasted Tree and knife | fork | book. The Book of Benjamin is forthcoming from Palimpsest Press in the fall of 2023. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. You can find him online at benrobinson.work.

Melanie Dennis Unrau is a poet of mixed European ancestry living on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg. A Research Affiliate and Visiting Fellow at the University of Manitoba, also a sessional instructor at the University of Winnipeg, Melanie studies oil poetry and the poetics of just transition. She is the author of the poetry collection Happiness Threads (Muses’ Company, 2013) and the poetry chapbook The Goose (above/ground, 2023), a co-editor of Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat (Palgrave, 2014), and a former editor of The Goose journal and Geez magazine. Her forthcoming book “The Rough Poets: Petropoetics and the Tradition of Canadian Oil-Worker Poetry” is on contract with McGill-Queen's University Press. She is working on a poetry collection, “The Goose,” a literary-critical reading of “father of the tar sands” S.C. Ells’s Northland Trails. She recently co-edited a forthcoming issue of Canadian Literature journal on “Poetics and Extraction.” Melanie was a long-time participant in the Artist Mothers’ Collective at Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art in Winnipeg; she loves collaborating with visual artists and poets. This reading was first prepared for the Late Winter Writers Online Residency at the Banff Centre in February 2023.

MLA Chernoff is a poet, performance artist, meme enthusiast, and recovering academic. Their debut full-length poetry collection, [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], was released by Gordon Hill Press in Fall 2021. MLA is also the author of several chapbooks, including delet this, TERSE THIRSTY, SCRIED FUNDAMENTS, and I'M LIKE THE GREAT GRANDCHILD OF MARX & COCA-COLA (BUT NON-BINEY). They hope you are having a real nice day xo xo

new from above/ground press: The Goose, by Melanie Dennis Unrau

The Goose
Melanie Dennis Unrau
$5

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Melanie Dennis Unrau respectfully acknowledges the original caretakers of the land known as Treaty 1 territory/Winnipeg, where she lives as a guest of mixed European ancestry on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis Nation. Melanie is a Research Affiliate at the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities and a Visiting Fellow at St. John’s College (U of Manitoba). She is the author of Happiness Threads: The Unborn Poems (Muses’ Company, 2013), a former editor and poetry editor at Geez magazine, and a former co-editor of The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada.

This is Melanie Dennis Unrau’s second above/ground press title, after guest-editing G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #17 (June, 2021).

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

Nicholas Molbert's poem from G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] nominated for The Pushcart Prize,

Nicholas Molbert's poem, "The Prophet of Spindletop Gives Thanks after the Lucas Gusher Strikes Oil," from G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] #17, edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau, has been nominated for potential inclusion in the 47th edition of their annual volume, THE PUSHCART PRIZE: BEST OF THE SMALL PRESSES (November 2022). What does it all mean? Congratulations, Nicholas Molbert and congratulations Melanie Dennis Unrau! Here's hoping his poem does get selected.

announcing: G U E S T #17, a (periodicities) folio and an online launch,

On Thursday, June 3^rd, 2021 there will be an online launch for Melanie Dennis Unrau’s guest-edited issue of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors], a print issue that features new work by Yvonne Blomer, Kiran Malik-Khan, Peter Christensen, K.B. Thors, Nicholas Molbert, Rina Garcia Chua, Tawahum Bige, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, David Martin, Ross Belot, Bola Opaleke, Adam Dickinson, Lindsay Bird, Kelly Shepherd, Maya Weeks, Lisa Mulrooney + Rita Wong.

The issue itself doesn’t announce officially until Thursday morning (where you can find her introduction to the issue online at https://guestpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/) but you can totally pre-order (that’s what we’re calling it, yep) via the paypal button (because I have a huge box of them sitting here, I mean really)

G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] : issue #17
guest-edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Canadian/American/International rates (including shipping

Canadian orders $6.00 CAD American orders $7.00 CAD International orders $11.00 CAD

and, appearing simultaneously to the G U E S T issue [7am CDT/9am EDT] will be:
energy stories : folio
edited by Melanie Dennis Unrau at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics
as a supplemental folio to G U E S T #17
which will land on Thursday morning at https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/ along with an introduction by Unrau
with new writing by Sarah-Jean Krahn, Arleen Paré, Kathy Fisher, David C. Brydges + Dymphony Dronyk

INFORMATION ON THE THURSDAY AFTERNOON READING:
June 3, 2021 : 2:30pm CDT/4:30 EDT
|see facebook link here for information: https://www.facebook.com/events/3149594938632418
lovingly hosted by Melanie Dennis Unrau
with readings by participating authors:
Yvonne Blomer, Kiran Malik-Khan, Peter Christensen, K.B. Thors, Rina Garcia Chua, David Martin, Ross Belot, Lindsay Bird, Kelly Shepherd and Lisa Mulrooney

 

 

Melanie Dennis Unrau respectfully acknowledges the original caretakers of the land known as Treaty 1/Winnipeg, where she lives as a settler of mixed European ancestry on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis Nation, with water from Shoal Lake in Treaty 3 territory and with electricity from Treaty 1,3, and 5 territory, where the Northern Flood Agreement has never been implemented. Melanie is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a Research Affiliate at the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities. She is the author of Happiness Threads: The Unborn Poems (Muses’ Company, 2013), a co-editor of Seriality and Texts for Young People: The Compulsion to Repeat (Palgrave, 2014), a former editor and poetry editor at Geez magazine, and a former co-editor of The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada.