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.

some author activity: Mellis, Blouin, Gwathmey + Ballard,

forthcoming author Miranda Mellis has some new work in Annulet; Michael Blouin is interviewed by Finnian Burnett; Matthew Gwathmey has a new poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series via dusie; and forthcoming author Micah Ballard has a new poem up as part of the weekly feature "Poetry at The Arts Fuse."

some author activity: Pirie, Harvey, Boyle + Blouin,

Pearl Pirie has a poem in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Mikko Harvey "Recommends" via Poets & Writers; Frances Boyle has a new poem up at JMWW; and Michael Blouin is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews.

some author activity: Townsend, Olsen, Hofmann + Blouin,

Jamie Townsend is being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Geoffrey Olsen is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Ava Hofmann has some new work online via the Action Books blog; and Michael Blouin has a book heading to the moon!

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, November 22: Birrell, Blouin, Colistro + Earl,

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:

The Factory Reading Series
pre-small press book fair reading
celebrating 25 years of the ottawa small press book fair
featuring readings by:

Heather Birrell (Toronto)
Michael Blouin (Kemptville)
Vincent Colistro (Toronto)
+ Amanda Earl (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted as part of a rare public appearance by poet, provocateur and accidental recluse, rob mclennan
Friday, November 22, 2019;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

[And don’t forget the ottawa small press book fair, held the following day at the Jack Purcell Community Centre]

Heather Birrell [pictured] is the author of two story collections, both published by Coach House Books: Mad Hope (a Globe and Mail top fiction pick for 2012 and a “CanLit cult classic,” according to 49th Shelf) and I know you are but what am I? Heather’s work has been honoured with the Journey Prize for short fiction and the Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction and shortlisted for the KM Hunter Award, the Arc Magazine poem of the year award, National and Western Magazine Awards (Canada), and received a notable mention in Best American Essays 2017. Heather works as a high school English teacher and a creative writing instructor in Toronto, where she lives with her family. Float and Scurry (A Feed Dog Book from Anvil Press) is her first poetry collection. Learn more about Heather and her work at www.heatherbirrell.com

Michael Blouin has won ReLit Best Novel in Canada, been shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award, the bp Nichol Award, the CBC Literary Award, and is a winner of the Diana Brebner Award and the  Lampman Award. He has collaborated on recent projects with poet Gillian Sze, film director Bruce McDonald, poet and artist bill bissett and visual artist and author Elizabeth Rainer. He has been published in most Canadian literary magazines including Arc, Descant, Branch, Dragnet, The Antigonish Review, Event, Queen's Quarterly, Grain and The Fiddlehead. He has received rave reviews from The National Post, The Ottawa Citizen, The Chicago Institute for Photography and Literature, The Ottawa International Writers Festival, SubTerrain Magazine, Broken Pencil Magazine, Ottawa Magazine, This Magazine, The Telegraph Journal, Lynn Crosbie, bill bissett, Emily Schultz, Susan Musgrave, Marilyn Bowering, George Fetherling, Phil Hall, Sean Wilson, Paul Gessell, rob mclennan, Alejandro Bustos, Melanie Jannisse, Catherine Owen and Lisa Moore. He has served as an adjudicator for The Canada Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Ottawa Book Awards, Carleton University and This Magazine. His most recent work is in the Summer 2017 issue of Arc Magazine. Forthcoming are material in Taddle Creek Magazine, the anthology The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings and the novels Skin House, and I am Billy the Kid.

Vincent Colistro's poems have appeared in The Walrus, Hazlitt, Geist, Arc and elsewhere. He was a prize-winner in the 2012 Short Grain contest, and was nominated for National Magazine Award for Poetry in 2014. Late Victorians (Signal Editions, 2016) was his first book, but his new chapbook Mountain Fountain Font (Odourless Press, 2019) is what he's currently excited about.

Amanda Earl writes in Ottawa, and occasionally other places. She’s the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. Kiki (Chaudiere Books) is now available from Invisible Publishing. For more information, please visit AmandaEarl.com or connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle. Her latest chapbook, and her seventh from above/ground press, is Aftermath or Scenes of a Woman Convalescing (2019).

some author activity: hastain, Price, Baker, Blouin + Downs,

j/j hastain and Juliet Cook have some new collaborative work up at tenderness, yea; Katie L. Price is interviewed over at Speaking of Marvels; Jennifer Baker was interviewed earlier this year at Aella's blog; Michael Blouin has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; and Buck Downs is featured at Medium as part of rob mclennan's Spotlight series.

some author activity: Blouin, Pirie, Earl, Smith, Norman + Barwin,

Michael Blouin has an essay in Amish Trivedi's "Where Do You Write, My Lovely?"; Pearl Pirie participates in Amanda Earl's "One More Thing"; Amanda Earl has some new visual poetry up at Our Teeth; poems by Pete Smith and Peter Norman are now online as part of the Montreal International Poetry Prize 2015 longlist; and Gary Barwin has a new poem up at h&.

Framework: Words on the Land. Public reading and conversation w/ Hall, Blouin, Holmes, etc

Framework: Words on the Land. Public reading and conversation with 10 writers writing in-situ at Fieldwork. Sunday, August 23. 3 pm.

Fieldwork is excited to be partnering with the Ottawa International Writers Festival/Perth Chapter this year to present a new event called Framework: Words on the Land coming up on August 23 at 3pm. This event will include readings and conversations with ten writers (including a couple of past and present above/ground press authors) who will have just finished a weekend of writing in-situ at Fieldwork.

Writers:  Amanda West Lewis, Amanda Jernigan, Phil Hall, Michael Blouin, Matthew Holmes, Wayne Grady, Merilyn Simonds, Christine Pountney, Jeff Warren, Troy MacClure. For further information, including ticket information, click here.

some author activity: Smith, Blouin, McElroy, mclennan, beaulieu + Poe,

Jessica Smith has some poems up in the first issue of N/A; co-author Michael Blouin's "On process" essay is the fourth piece in the ongoing "On writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Gil McElroy and rob mclennan have new essays in the seventh issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics; derek beaulieu gets some love from Eric Schmaltz over at Lemonhhound; and Deborah Poe's reading at Ivy Writers Paris, May, 2013 has been posted (with a report) up at YouTube.

The Factory Reading Series presents: Hugh Thomas, Michael Blouin, Brecken Hancock + Abby Paige,

The Factory Reading Series presents:

Hugh Thomas (Fredericton)
Michael Blouin (Kemptville)
Brecken Hancock (Ottawa)
+ Abby Paige (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, February 22, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale)

Hugh Thomas lives in Fredericton, where he is a professor of mathematics at the University of New Brunswick. Chapbooks of his poetry have been published by Paper Kite Press (Heart badly buried by five shovels, 2009), BookThug (Mutations, 2004), and above/ground press (Opening the Dictionary, 2011), which was shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Franzlations, the imaginary Kafka parables, a book of variations on Kafka texts, a joint project with Gary Barwin and Craig Conley, was published by New star Books in 2011.

Michael Blouin‘s critically acclaimed first novel Chase and Haven (Coach House) was a finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and won the 2009 ReLit Award. In 2007 his first collected poetry I’m not going to lie to you (Pedlar Press) was a finalist for the Lampman Scott Award. In 2011 Pedlar Press released Wore Down Trust, which won the Lampman Poetry Award in 2012. He was a finalist for the 2010 CBC Literary Awards and his work has been published in many literary magazines includingDescant, Arc, The Antigonish Review, Event, Queen’s Quarterly, The New Quarterly, and The Fiddlehead. He is currently completing work on his second novel and is represented internationally by Westwood Creative Artists. His collaborative chapbook with Elizabeth Rainer, let lie/ (above/ground press, 2011), was shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award.

Brecken Hancock's [pictured, above] poetry and essays have appeared in Grain, CV2, The Fiddlehead, PRISM, Arc, and Studies in Canadian Literature. Originally from Middle Lake, Saskatchewan, she's since lived in Fredericton, Reykjavik, and Kyoto, but she's also been home to hold residencies at The Bruno Arts Bank, a converted historical building in rural Saskatchewan. Her first full-length manuscript of poems, Broom Broom, is forthcoming with Coach House Books. She lives and walks dogs in Ottawa.

She will be launching her chapbook The Art of Plumbing (above/ground press).

Abby Paige is a poet, performer, and freelance writer whose work has appeared in the United States and Canada, most recently in ottawater #9. Her solo show, Piecework: When We Were French, has toured in New England and Quebec. She received her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is a former Fulbright scholar.

She will be launching her chapbook Other Brief Discourses (above/ground press).

Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin's collaborative above/ground chapbook, let lie/, is reviewed in Broken Pencil #57

Lindsay Rainingbird was good enough to review Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin's collaborative above/ground chapbook, let lie/ (above/ground press, 2012) in Broken Pencil #57 (autumn 2012 issue). Thanks, Lindsay! There are a few copies of their bpNichol Chapbook Award-nominated chapbook still available, here. Although I admit to not understanding why so many reviewers in Broken Pencil seem not to comprehend that not all folded/stapled are “zines,” perhaps never hearing the term “chapbook” in their lives. Why the disconnect?

This collaborative work, written over a year and a half and emailed back and forth from Vancouver to Kemptville, Ontario, is a glimpse inside a decaying relationship. What it lacks in punctuation it makes up for in vivid descriptions of the heart’s status. The prose pieces weave seamlessly together, like pages ripped from the same journal, and the endnote confessing “one marriage ended in the process. One survived,” lends a certain intrigue to the work that encourages the reader to delve deeper.

            There is longing, “I would be that cigarette that lighter because it is in your hands / I would be condensation on your glass where you wipe / I would be careful I would be discreet” and there is guilt, “I told you how I felt and the things that I said then I didn’t mean any of them and none of them were true / and remember the lights went off and we checked the window and the whole block was dark as if my own lies had been counted and I had reached my limit.” Then, there is acceptance: “You are what pulls me up / He doesn’t always do that / it’s okay it’s not His job all the time.” Let lie\ is a zine that will stay with you long after the close, and is well worth the $4 fee for even just a handful of the gut-punching lines contained inside.

Hugh Thomas' Opening the Dictionary and Elizabeth Rainer + Michael Blouin's let lie shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award!

Congratulations to all the authors shortlisted for this year's prize! above/ground press is thrilled to be included not once, but twice, on this year's list, and for the first time! Michael Blouin's inclusion also comes on the heels of his Archibald Lampman Award, which was presented last night as part of the Ottawa Book Awards. Congrats, all!

Click here for more information on Thomas' chapbook, and here for the Rainer/Blouin collaboration, both of which are still available.

Here's the full announcement, from the Meet the Presses blog:

In 2012, the Meet the Presses collective took over the administration of the annual bpNichol Chapbook Award, which was launched in 1996. Named for the late poet, novelist, and indie publisher bpNichol, the $2,000 prize is awarded to the author of the best poetry chapbook published in the previous year, as selected by two judges appointed by Meet the Presses.

Judges Bill Kennedy and Maggie Helwig — both writers themselves — made the tough choices this year.

The finalists for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award are:

    Spencer Gordon, Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!, Ferno House (Toronto)
    Adrienne Gruber, Mimic, Leaf Press (Lantzville, B.C.)
    Liz Howard, (skullambient), Ferno House (Toronto)
    Robert Martens, Poltergeist, Lipstick Press (Gabriola, B.C.)
    Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin, let lie, above/ground press (Ottawa)
    Hugh Thomas, Opening the Dictionary, above/ground press (Ottawa)

The winner will be announced at the Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market, which takes place on November 17, 2012, noon to 4:30 p.m., at the Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Street, in Toronto.

The market gives the public an opportunity to meet independent literary publishers and authors, and take home books, chapbooks, magazines, broadsheets, and recordings that are largely not available in bookstores.

The Meet the Presses collective is Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Ally Fleming, Beth Follett, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power, Stuart Ross, and Carey Toane.

About the 2012 Judges:

Maggie Helwig lives in Toronto. She was co-coordinator of the Toronto Small Press Fair from 1998 to 2003, and the event coordinator/associate director of the Scream Literary Festival from 2005 to 2009. She was among the founding members of the Meet the Presses collective. Her most recent book is the novel Girls Fall Down, published by Coach House Books in 2008.

Bill Kennedy once cold-called Bob Cobbing from a London phone booth. He proceeded to spend two days of his vacation with Bob perusing Writers Forum publications, an experience he considers his only real bona fide for judging a chapbook award. Bill is the co-author (with Darren Wershler) of Apostrophe (ECW, 2006) and Update (Snare Books, 2010). He’s a long-time literary organizer, from the Café May Reading Series (with Michael Holmes), to the Lexiconjury Reading Series (with Angela Rawlings), to the Scream Literary Festival (with a whole bunch of awesome people) where he did a ten-year stint as Artistic Director. The Apostrophe Engine (www.apostropheengine.ca), the web-based poem that generated the book, has recently appeared as part of the Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. His latest venture is Intelligent Machines (www.intelligentmachines.ca), a digital media co-operative. Bill lives in Toronto.

Mark McCawley reviews recent chapbooks by Elizabeth Rainer/Michael Blouin, Stephen Brockwell + rob mclennan

Edmonton writer, publisher and reviewer Mark McCawley was good enough to review three recent above/ground press titles on his Fresh Raw Cuts blog. See the original review here. Thanks, Mark!

let lie\
by Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin
above/ground press, 8.5x5.5, 20pp, $4.00 (CAN)
published, January 2012

Excerpts from Impossible Books:  The Crawdad Cantos
by Stephen Brockwell
above/ground press, 8.5x5.5, 20pp, $4.00 (CAN)
published, February 2012

Sextet: six poems from Songs for little sleep,
by rob mclennan
above/ground press, 8.5x5.5, 20pp, $4.00 (CAN)
published, January 2012

The quintessential poet's micro-press, above/ground press — founded and published by poet, writer, and editor Rob McLennan out of Ottawa, Ontario — publishes chapbooks by both newly emerging and established poets alike. What makes above/ground press titles stand apart from other micro-press poetry chapbooks (besides their nondescript covers, that is) is that they offer the reader glimpses into collaborations as well as individual works in progress. It's these glimpses which above/ground gives that makes their titles unique, revealing the process of the poet's composition, their collaborations, as each waltz's their muse along the thin razor's edge of creation.

In let lie\, an excerpt from a collaborative work by Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin, we are given  glimpses into pieces which were written over a period of a year and a half and emailed back and forth:

    to describe it\ I should not ask you when you touch yourself to think of me as I am there no probably this is the very type of thing I should keep to myself that and this is the failure of poetry to do you any kind of justice at all light tapping of my heart punching holes in the sky.

    it would be\ nice for me if you were someone else for a change someone who didn't know me so well my tremors hopes then when we were making love it would all be different once more your ankles up around and there wouldn't be that look on your face him, again.

Here, Rainer and Blouin successfully combine masculine and feminine language and metaphor in an ongoing collaboration which mixes and juxtaposes contrasting identities into a string of textual and contextual and allegorical narratives.

Stephen Brockwell’s Excerpts from Impossible Books: The Crawdad Cantos is the latest installment of Brockwell's ongoing work-in-progress. At times pithy, sometimes brilliant, Brockwell's poems run the entire gamut in this ongoing project. For instance, both this chapbook and the following poem's self-deprecating dark humor reveals Brockwell at his poetic height:

    "Brockwell, you're a fool, thrilled by a sunset
    'beyond words.' The sunset is beyond; but
    beyond words? No. Words for it outpace you.
    God bless impala words you'll never speak."
    Here's what I posted — you can slag it too:

    Watched gorgeous sunset from window on flight
    to LAX. Beyond words. Tried anyway.

    "from Messages from Imaginary Friends: Karikura and the Inarticulate Sunset" 

Lastly, there is the controlled musicality and the experimental narrative quality in rob mclennan's Sextet: six poems from Songs for little sleep, which draws the reader inside by using repeated phrasings of short sentences and brief staccato rhythms:

    1.

    The gathering place of something, we. I can't recall. It was I who called, who called, who.

    Watch the moon, full, you must. You must, we. We are watching the full moon, full of something. Was full, of only, possibly ourselves. Only full.

    We were watching the moon we were.

    from "The learning curve that sometimes manages, itself"


All three of these titles offer varying glimpses of excerpts, collaborations, and works-in-progress not found elsewhere by poets just reaching the height of their craft. In these above/ground press chapbooks they practice a high wire literary act. Sometimes failing. More often than not, though, succeeding brilliantly. It takes guts to write without a net, and particularly to publish those early efforts for all to see. Guts, indeed.

some author activity: Blouin, Mangold, Ladouceur, mclennan, Brockwell;

Some more author activity: anticipating his chapbook launch tonight, Michael Blouin answers the "At the Desk" interview series over at Open Book: Ontario; Sarah Mangold gets her own "12 or 20 questions" interview, and a new e-book with little red leaves; Ben Ladouceur now has his own blog, so you can keep better track of his doings; and rob mclennan and Stephen Brockwell read on February 24, 2012 at UL-Lafayette as part of Deep South.

span-o presents: The Factory Reading Series: Young, Blouin + Macdonald,

The Factory Reading Series

with readings/launches by:

Deanna Young (Ottawa)  
Michael Blouin (Ottawa)
+ Robin K. Macdonald (Gatineau Hills)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, February 17, 2012;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm

The Carleton Tavern, 223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Deanna Young’s second book of poems, Drunkard’s Path, was published by Gaspeareau Press in 2001. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals including The Malahat Review and Arc and been aired on CBC radio. She's currently completing her third manuscript, Knowledge from a Previous Life. Born in Lucan, Ontario, she now lives in Ottawa.

She will be launching the chapbook Mediterraneo (above/ground press), a collection of three short poems.

Michael Blouin is a novelist and a poet. He has two books of poetry with Pedlar Press (I’m not going to lie to you 2007, Lampman-Scott Award Finalist) and Wore Down Trust (2011), a novel with Coach House Books (Chase and Haven 2008, ReLit Award Winner and Amazon First Novel Finalist) and a chapbook with Apt. 9 Press. He is represented by Westwood Creative Artists and his online home is www.michaelblouin.org

He will be launching the chapbook let lie/ (above/ground press), an excerpt of a collaboration with Elizabeth Rainer.

Robin K. Macdonald is a poet, creative non-fiction writer and restorative justice practitioner. She has recently returned from Writing with Style at the Banff Centre. Since then, she's been exploring short-stories as a shape to express her adventures in northern Manitoba, where she lived for most of her adult life. Robin now lives in the Gatineau Hills. She has poetry in the most recent issue of ottawater.

new from above/ground press: let lie/, an excerpt from a collaborative work by Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin

let lie/
an excerpt from a collaborative work by Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin
$4

that’s the way it goes it goes mm hmm mm hmm da… mm hmm mm hmm da… something about the ocean de de de de mm hmm and being pulled from the wreckage you hardly ever hear it on the radio anymore you told me once my vagina was like a small bird and I never asked you how it doesn’t forage for food in the forest in the winter nor does it sing from the trees in the spring I sometimes wonder if you had any idea what you were saying half the time you said anything at all there’s a part in the middle that goes nan a na naa in the middle of the song I mean not in the middle of my vagina and a part that goes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah dried and bedded and sometimes the truth is just the ceiling coming down just the ashes left see you’re carrying that look on your face if you want to make love to me take off your pants and if you want to go just do it just go but either way like men say when they throw the football… go long.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2012
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Elizabeth Rainer is a visual artist and a writer. Her work has been published in numerous small magazines. This is her first chapbook. Her online home is www.wordrocket.tumblr.com and although she resides in Vancouver she lives in Alberta.

Michael Blouin is a novelist and a poet. He has two books of poetry with Pedlar Press (I’m not going to lie to you 2007, Lampman-Scott Award Finalist) and Wore Down Trust (2011), a novel with Coach House Books (Chase and Haven 2008, ReLit Award Winner and Amazon First Novel Finalist) and a chapbook with Apt. 9 Press. He is represented by Westwood Creative Artists and his online home is www.michaelblouin.org

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

“poem” broadside #302: Morrisburg Ontario, by Michael Blouin

a lot of what gets said isn’t true

some things become more true over time

this place grew me

been lying on this bathroom floor long enough

to speculate that the intricacies of the tile work are beyond standard motel applications

the word byzantine might come into play

was it usual for this particular motel? did the tile layer have a momentary vision and set aside the wrinkled paper plan? run back and forth to the pickup or the store? get fired for it at the end but happy with an emptied head finally and dreams of a future beyond mere tilery and motel splendour? this is what I end up hoping.

that the man spent the rest of his life fabricating elaborate mosaics living on chocolate and water and feeling things more deeply than was strictly good for him

after dusk I wander into the tree line behind the soft vinyl sided building slowly driven by something I do not know fingers lightly brushing the rough tree edges

my neck becomes sore from looking up

no stars.

Morrisburg Ontario

by Michael Blouin

Produced for a reading at the Dusty Owl Reading Series

June 12, 2011

above/ground press broadside #302

Michael Blouin’s Chase and Haven (Coach House) won the Re Lit Award for Best Novel in 2009. His current Wore Down Trust (Pedlar Press) is garnering national attention. This new work is from a manuscript in progress. http://www.minor-poet.blogspot.com