Misha Solomon and Stephanie Bolster chapbook launch in Montreal! July 9, 2026

Montreal poets Misha Solomon (Misha Solomon’s BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster) and Stephanie Bolster (BIODÔME: Twentieth Anniversary Edition) launch their most recent above/ground press chapbooks, accompanied by Alex Nierenhausen and hosted by and in conversation with Sarah Burgoyne, at Librairie Pulp Books & Cafe, July 9, 2026 at 7pm! Oh, you should very much go to this if you are able. See also the recent interview with Solomon on the chapbook here, or the more-recent zoom-conversation on above/ground press that Cole Swensen conducted with Misha Solomon, Jennifer Baker and rob mclennan.

Publishing-in-Transit: Cole Swensen zoom-interviewed Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan + Misha Solomon on above/ground press for Brooklyn Rail: recording now online,

It was such a good conversation! Check out the full hour-plus conversation with myself, Misha Solomon and Jennifer Baker on and around above/ground press, conducted by the brilliant Cole Swensen and hosted by Brooklyn Rail, either here through their site or via their YouTube channel. We talked about VERSeFest, we talked a brief history of above/ground press, we talked about Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] (and hear the legend of how the donkey got its name) and even the “Tuesday poem” series. You can order Misha Solomon’s above/ground press titles here (and his new book over here), Jennifer Baker’s above/ground press titles here, and my above/ground press titles here (or the chapbook I read from, even). Cole Swensen even has an above/ground press title! But you know she has a new book as well, yes? Thanks to everyone who made this thing happen!

Cole Swensen zoom-interviews rob mclennan, Misha Solomon + Jennifer Baker May 20th on above/ground press for Brooklyn Rail,

Publishing-in-Transit: above/ground
Featuring Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan, Misha Solomon

Wednesday, May 20, 2026
1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

REGISTER HERE

Poets Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan, and Misha Solomon join Rail contributor Cole Swensen for a conversation on Zoom on above/ground press (which turns thirty-three years old this summer, by the way). 

Jennifer Baker is a poet and Teaching Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of four chapbooks: Abject Lessons (above/ground press, 2014), Groundling (Trainwreck Press, 2021/reissued by above/ground press, 2023), Memento Mishka (co-authored with David Currie, Apt. 9 Press, 2023), and Wee Walk (above/ground press, 2026). Her work has been featured in Groundwork: Best of above/ground press (2023), Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, The Journal of Canadian Poetry, Canadian Literature, Dusie, and the Delisted project. 

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he founded above/ground press, a publisher of chapbooks, journals and other ephemera, way back in July 1993. He also spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. His work has appeared in journals across Canada and has been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, 2026, and 2027 (Biblioasis) and in On Occasion: Poems for the People (Coach House Books). He is the author of three chapbooks, including FLORALS and Misha Solomon's BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster (above/ground press), and one full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet (Brick Books). He has a BA from Columbia University, an MA from Concordia University, and he is currently a student in Concordia’s Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD program.

Cole Swensen [see her above/ground press title here] is the author of twenty volumes of poetry, most recently And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), which was long-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a collection of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise. A book of hybrid poem-essays, Art in Time, was published by Nightboat in 2021. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the LA Times Book Award and has been awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series. She has also translated over twenty volumes of poetry, prose, and art criticism from French and won the 2024 ALTA National Translation Award and the 2025 Stephen Mitchell Translation Award.

some author activity: Armantrout, mclennan, fitzpatrick, Smith, Saklikar, Kemp-Gee, Bolster + Solomon,

Rae Armantrout has four poems up at Granta; rob mclennan is interviewed via Coach House for the On Occasion anthology; there's also a hefty interview with mclennan conducted by ryan fitzpatrick; Mahaila Smith is interviewed via the National Poetry Month "POETS RESIST" interview series at All Lit Up, as is Renée Sarojini Saklikar and Meghan Kemp-Gee, and Stephanie Bolster and Misha Solomon's recent chapbooks even get mentioned via the Wikipedia page for Montreal's Biodome, which is cool.

new from above/ground press: Misha Solomon’s BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster, by Misha Solomon

Misha Solomon’s BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster
Misha Solomon
$6

Southern Two-Toed Sloth

Everyone represents the self’s less attractive
features with words that seek to distract, to deflect,
to scapegoat. You may think me slow, they try to say,
or lazy, but I’m so much better than the sign
to which this sinful word now points. And here I am,
and yes I’m slow, but the effort that it takes me
to go about my selfsame days is of a scale,
a magnitude, that far exceeds the limits placed
by semantics. There is no animal called lust,
called pride, called wrath, called greed. And if there were a beast
called gluttony, I’d envy them their liberty.
Nature rewards profligacy, in the short term.
I know not what it rewards in the long—my pace
implies perdurance, but I live no more for it.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

This title is literally a response to Montreal poet Stephanie Bolster's chapbook BIODÔME (above/ground press 2006). A twentieth anniversary edition of BIODÔME, with a new introduction by Misha Solomon (above/ground press), appeared earlier this week.

cover credit: Naomie Hadida

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. His work has twice appeared in Best Canadian Poetry and in journals across Canada. He is a student in Concordia’s Interdisciplinary PhD program. His debut full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, appeared with Brick Books in March 2026. Misha Solomon’s Biodôme: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster is his third chapbook.

This is Solomon’s second above/ground press title, after FLORALS (2020).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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

new from above/ground press: BIODÔME: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by Stephanie Bolster

BIODÔME: Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Stephanie Bolster
with an introduction by Misha Solomon
and new afterword by the author
$6

HOUSING THE GREAT AUK

Masses of glass, rocks at the back,
craggy, like the outcroppings in illustrations.
To think they thought the last had snuffed it!
Water at the front, so its splash
will make the gawkers flinch.
Can’t take long or journalists will catch
the squawks and then our coup
will cool. Remember the coelacanth?
Give it eels, beetles, chocolate ices
if it wants. Keep each lost feather
for the shop – a transparent envelope,
ten pounds, twenty? At night when they go home
we can ask it about the nineteenth century.
The sea teeming with ships! We were a marvel.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Stephanie Bolster’s latest book of poetry, Long Exposure, appeared with Palimpsest Press in fall 2025. Excerpts from the book were finalists for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2019. Bolster’s first book, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General’s Award and the Gerald Lampert Award and was translated into French as Pierre Blanche. Her poems have also been translated into Spanish, German, and Serbo-Croatian. Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and The Ishtar Gate: Last and Selected Poems by the late Ottawa poet Diana Brebner, and co-editor of Penned: Zoo Poems, she was born in Vancouver and grew up in Burnaby, BC. She has been a professor of creative writing at Concordia University since 2000 and lives in Pointe-Claire, Québec, on the Mohawk (Kanien’kehá:ka) territory of Skaniatara:ti.

Many of the poems from this chapbook were later incorporated into and published as part of Stephanie Bolster’s A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth (London ON: Brick Books, 2011), a book shortlisted for the 2012 Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Thanks to Brick Books for the permission to reprint this anniversary edition.

This is Stephanie Bolster’s fifth above/ground press chapbook, after Three Bloody Words (1996), BIODÔME (2006), Three Bloody Words: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2016) and GHOSTS (2017).

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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

some author activity: fitzpatrick, Smith, Mody, mclennan, Burdick, Aube + Solomon,

ryan fitzpatrick has work up at NewPoetry; Dale Martin Smith has a new piece up at Annulet; Monica Mody has two poems up at Art of the Commune; rob mclennan has some new work up at North of Oxford; Alice Burdick also has new work up at NewPoetry; Gwen Aube is interviewed in the "12 or 20 questions" series; and Misha Solomon has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series.

some author activity: Inniss, Carpenter, Lea, benedict, Solomon + Flemmer,

Scott Inniss has new work in the Spotlight series; J.R. Carpenter is featured in the Canadian Poets Series over at Peripety and/or Tronies; N.W. Lea is interviewed via the above/ground press substack; alex benedict has a new essay on d.a. levy over at Cleveland Review of Books; Misha Solomon is interviewed in the "12 or 20 questions" series; and Kyle Flemmer is interviewed over at the podcast On Creative Writing.

some author activity: Robinson, Solomon, mclennan, Smith, Boyle + Adams,

Ben Robinson has a poem up at NewPoetry; Misha Solomon has a poem in carte blanche; rob mclennan has new poems up at jagged edge; Mahaila Smith has a new poem up at penumbric; Frances Boyle has a poem in Great Lakes Review; and Carrie Olivia Adams has new work in Tupelo Quarterly, not once but twice.

some author activity: Wells, Myles, Barwin, Sawyer, Solomon + Macdonald,

forthcoming author Christina Wells has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Eileen Myles has a new poem up at Discordia Review; a new interview with Gary Barwin is now up at the above/ground press substack; the late Larry Sawyer has a poem up at Poets.org; Misha Solomon has a wee essay, "Finding the Form," in The New Quarterly; and Dawn Macdonald has new work in -ette, as well as in the first issue of Journal of Experimental Practice.

some author activity: Berlatsky, Archer, Solomon, Ladouceur, Robinson + Smith,

Noah Berlatsky has a new poem up at smols; Sacha Archer and Misha Solomon have work up at long con magazine; Ben Ladouceur is interviewed by Jasper Fleming for EVENT magazine; Elizabeth Robinson has new work up at autocorrect; and Steven Ross Smith has posted a new word-music collaboration with renowned double bass jazz musician Neil Swainson over at bandcamp.

some author activity: O'Connor, Hall, Solomon, Browne + McCann,

Wanda O'Connor is interviewed about her garden for an article on the BBC; Phil Hall has new work up at Discordia Review; Misha Solomon has a new poem up at The New Quarterly; Laynie Browne is interviewed via podcast over at Tin House; and did you know Marcus McCann has a Medium newsletter you can follow?

some author activity: Stebner, Martin, Berlatsky, Banks, Mohammadi, Moure + Solomon,

Kevin Stebner answers the '12 or 20 questions' interview; Camille Martin has a series of photographs newly posted online; Noah Berlatsky has new work up at dadakuku; Chris Banks has an essay forthcoming in Best Canadian Essays 2026, and Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, Erín Moure and Misha Solomon have poems forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2026.

some author activity: Carpenter, Solomon, Armantrout, Mellis, Norris + Stengel,

I missed it before, but J.R. Carpenter has a collaborative work with Mary Paterson over at Pamenar Online Journal; Misha Solomon is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Rae Armantrout has two new poems online at Granta; Miranda Mellis has started a substack; Ken Norris has new work up at The Typescript; and Jill Stengel has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series.

some author activity: MacEachern, Levy, Solomon, Smith, Dolman, Clayton + Baker,

Jessi MacEachern has new work up at the Spotlight series; John Levy has a new poem up at The Pi Review, as does Misha Solomon; Mahaila Smith answers some interview questions for Angry Gable Press; and AJ Dolman, Conyer Clayton + Jennifer Baker were interviewed yesterday on Friday Special Blend for their reading later today at the Kemptville Branch of the North Grenville Public Library.

some author activity: Clayton, Boyle, Reid, Smith, Solomon, Dolman + Baker,

Conyer Clayton has some new work up at the ex-puritan, as does Frances Boyle; Clayton also has some new work up at Vallum magazine; Monty Reid had some poems up at The Dodge (that I hadn't noticed prior); Steven Ross Smith has a piece up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Misha Solomon has a poem up in the "Poetry Pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; and did you see that Conyer Clayton, AJ Dolman and Jennifer Baker are reading soon in Kemptville, Ontario at the North Grenville Public Library?

some author activity: Solomon, Kemp-Gee, Novak, Robinson, Smith + Wilkins,

Misha Solomon has a new poem up at Frozen Sea, and is also running some poetry workshops in Montreal this fall; Meghan Kemp-Gee has a new poem up at Trampset; JoAnna Novak and Elizabeth Robinson have new work up at Action, Spectacle; Mahaila Smith has new work up in the new issue of Polar Borealis; and Grant Wilkins is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Solomon, Berlatsky, Rogal, carisse, Baus + Dreiblatt,

Misha Solomon wrote on the late Ian Stephens for The Fiddlehead; Noah Berlatsky is interviewed over at talking about strawberries all of the time, where Stan Rogal and russell carisse also have poems; and the video from Eric Baus and Ian Dreiblatt's zoom-reading in Jack Krick's Hugely Popular series is now online.

some author activity: Cadsby, Swensen, Martin, Solomon + Williams,

Heather Cadsby is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Cole Swensen has two new poems in Big Other; Camille Martin's work is featured in the latest issue of Of Poets & Poetry; Misha Solomon has a new poem up at Plenitude magazine; and an excerpt of Evan Williams' new chapbook is now online at Cleveland Review of Books.

some author activity: Mangold, Smith, Clayton, o'brien, Solomon + O'Reilly,

Sarah Mangold has a new poem up on the Chaudiere blog as part of National Poetry Month (who also has a short write-up she did on her most recent title at the Poetry Society of America site), as does Dale Martin Smith, Conyer Clayton, and katie o'brien; Misha Solomon has a new poem up in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; and Nathanael O'Reilly has new work in The Elevation Review.