some author activity: Tynes, O'Reilly + Robertson,

Jen Tynes was offering nearly-daily poems as part of National Poetry Month over at the Bloof Books blog; Nathanael O'Reilly has new work up at Cordite; and there is a new interview with Lisa Robertson up at minor literature[s], as conducted by Christina Politano.

The Factory Reading Series, September 28, 2025: O'Reilly, Lithgow + Ladouceur,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:

Nathanael O'Reilly (Texas)
Michael Lithgow (Ottawa)
+
Ben Ladouceur (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Doors 7pm / Reading 7:30pm
Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa

Nathanael O’Reilly’s [pictured] fourteen poetry collections include Separation Blues: Poems 1994-2024 (Flying Islands Books, 2024), Dublin Wandering (Recent Work Press, 2024), Landmarks (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024), Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Downingfield Press, 2024) and Boulevard (Downingfield Press, 2024), as well as three chapbooks with above/ground press. His work appears in journals and anthologies published in fifteen countries, including Cordite, The Honest Ulsterman, Meanjin, New World Writing Quarterly, Rabbit, Southword, Trasna and Westerly. He is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Texas at Arlington.

Michael Lithgow’s poetry, fiction and academic writing have appeared in various Canadian and international journals including TNQ, the Literary Review of Canada (LRC), Topia, The /Temz/ Review, Canadian Literature, Existere, The Antigonish Review, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, ARC and Fiddlehead. He has authored two collections of poetry Waking in the Tree House (Cormorant Books, 2012) and Who We Thought We Were As We Fell (Cormorant Books, 2021). His short story ‘The Taxidermy Lesson’ was recently published in The Brussels Review. He teaches at Athabasca University.

Ben Ladouceur has received the Thomas Morton for Fiction, the National Magazine Award (Gold) for Poetry, the Archibald Lampman Award, the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and a writer’s residency at the Al Purdy A-Frame. He is the author of the novel I Remember Lights (2025), the poetry collections Otter (2015) and Mad Long Emotion (2019), and ten chapbooks, including the above/ground press titles Lime Kiln Quay Road (2011; second printing, 2014) which was nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and The Last Man (2025), produced as part of his upcoming tenure as University of Ottawa’s new writer-in-residence. He lives in Ottawa.

Colin Dardis reviews Nathanael O'Reilly's TERMINALS (2025) at Poem Alone

Irish poet (and above/ground press author) Colin Dardis was good enough to provide a first review of Nathanael O'Reilly's TERMINALS (2025) over at Poem Alone. Thanks so much! You can read Dardis' original post here. As he writes:

O’Reilly’s third pamphlet with Canada’s above/ground press is, as the title suggests, comprised entirely of the terminal form. As the book notes, the form was invented by Australian poet John Tranter, where "the final word of each line in a source poem us used as the end-word for each line of a new poem”. A sizeable challenge in itself, as O’Reilly maintains not only this end-words in this new pieces, but the same order of words and stanza structure for each poem.

Sourced poems come from Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin, Jessica Traynor, John Keats, Jane Clarke and others. The terminal device opens up a second level to the collection: the reader can source the originals, read and contrast them to O’Reilly’s re-imaginings, and admire just how inventive and challenging the new works our. Repeatedly, O’Reilly has been able to craft the restriction of the end-words into his own narrative, which often explores the need for isolation, and an affinity with landscapes. In ‘Settling Down’, the poem starts off as an innocent description of a beach scene, with surfers and fishermen. Then, unexpectedly:

    They do not know my remains
    will be scattered on their beach, blown
    out to see, the evidence of me
    settling down in one place at least[.]

This affinity drives the theme of some eco-poems in Terminals: closing poem ‘Autumn Lament’ chides humanity for not taking take of the earth – “The planet won’t let us off the hook | for the debts we owe’. The phrase ‘damaged earth’ is repeated from the opening poem, serving as neat bookend for the theme.

Tied closely to this connection to the land is the want for escape, mostly from other poem. The speaker in ‘The Landscape’s Singing’ hopes “for a fertile summer | writing poetry in the turf-shed”. In ‘Archaeology’, the opening action of ‘I close the door’ double downs on this shutting away of oneself, seemingly a much needed retreat: “I dig for the ancient me | sometimes feared vanished”. Although this is some connection with others elsewhere, such as remembering studying Picasso with a friend, or dwelling over a past love, the separateness creeps in. Equinox asks the ex-lover to “wonder | in my arms are lovelier than aloneness’. ‘Equinox’ sees the speaker wishing for ‘inspiration, solitude’, the two apparently inseparable.

There are a few flexible applications of the end words here and there: Heaney’s ‘place’ becomes ‘homeplace’ in O’Reilly rewriting; Duffy’s ‘hesitate’ shifts to ‘hesitation’; while Larkin’s ‘lace’ becomes hidden in the word ‘placed’. To this reviewer, these liberties are permissible: one would rather see a slight deviation, rather than have the language feel forced and unnatural in order to meet the demand of the original end-words. ‘Sweet Movement’ goes one step further, and retains the syllable count for each line as well from George and Ira Gershwin’s song, ‘Embraceable You’.

Looking at some of the end-words in isolation, one might marvel at the shift from the source poem to the new poem. ‘Remember’ takes from Ellen Bass’s ‘Any Common Desolation’. In one part, the end-words are ruminant, ginger, signs, mother, gathered, toes, etc., potentially unconnected to each other as the answers in a crossword puzzle. O’Reilly transforms these into a call for calmness and patience:

    Wait. Become ruminant,
    Meditate. Peel and grate ginger,
    sip healing tea. Search for signs
    of chance. Remember your mother,
    how she believed in you, gathered
    you in her arms, tickled your toes,
    made you laugh until you lost breath,
    distracted you from darkness. Sit in the yard
    imbibing the moon[.]

Terminals is a work of transmogrification, with surprising and pleasing results throughout, and is certainly the strongest work O’Reilly has published with above/ground press, which is known for championing experimental and restricted writing. A rewarding read, and for fellow writers, one that will inspire them to try their hand at their own terminal form.

some author activity: O'Reilly, Gurton-Wachter, Reid, Dardis, Boyle + Aube,

Nathanael O'Reilly has a poem included in Red Room Poetry's Phone-a-Poem project; Anna Gurton-Wachter has a poem in the debut issue of the newly-revived LONG NEWS; Monty Reid has a new poem suite up at IceFloe Press; Colin Dardis has three new poems up at The Pi Review; Frances Boyle has two new poems up at Obindo; and Gwen Aube launches their above/ground press chapbook this week in Montreal! oh, and did you see that above/ground press now has a substack?

new from above/ground press: TERMINALS, by Nathanael O'Reilly

TERMINALS
Nathanael O'Reilly
$5

Equinox

When you sit by the fireplace alone
reading Yeats, stare into the black night,
remember the summer evening when you
placed your right hand on my forearm out-
side the cinema, removed your mask,
declared your love, kissed me in the shadows.
Parked taxi-drivers watched like sentinels
as we caressed, kissed in orange lamplight.
Parakeets tucked heads under their wings,
settled down for the night in the cool air.
A brushtail possum scampered over a fence,
up a tree trunk to the shelter of leaves.
A rummaging in a bin, perhaps a rat,
disturbed our carefully cultivated poise.
We held each other beneath southern stars,
embraced the autumnal equinox.
I remember your sharp white teeth,
distant heels ticking across pavements,
trying to slow down, savour every last
second of our spontaneous self-indulgence.
We did not foresee our undoing
years later in a disintegrating foreign city.
We had no idea how we would feel
in the future, didn’t think about the hour
of passion as existing beyond the now.
As you sit by the fire in your snug house
stare into the black night outside and wonder
if my arms are lovelier than aloneness.

Note: A terminal utilizing the end-words from Denise O’Hagan’s “A World in Waiting.”

Note on the Form
The terminal form was invented by the Australian poet John Tranter (1943-2023). The final word of each line in a source poem is used as the end-word for each line of a new poem. For more on the terminal form and Tranter’s work, see Brian Henry’s article, “John Tranter’s New Form(alism): The Terminal,” Antipodes, volume 18, issue 1 (June 2004), pages 36-43.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian poet residing in Texas. His collections include Separation Blues: Poems 1994-2024 (Flying Islands Books, 2024), Dublin Wandering (Recent Work Press, 2024), Landmarks (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024), Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Downingfield Press, 2024), Boulevard (Downingfield Press, 2024), (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020), and Preparations for Departure (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2017). His work appears in journals and anthologies published in fifteen countries, including Anthropocene, Cordite, The Honest Ulsterman, Mascara, Meanjin, New World Writing Quarterly, Rabbit, Southword, Trasna and Westerly. He is poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.

This is O’Reilly’s third above/ground press title, after Dear Nostalgia (2023) and Blue (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

some author activity: Rogal, mclennan, Eleftherion, o'brien + O'Reilly,

Stan Rogal has some new poems up in The Temz Review; rob mclennan participates in Finnian Burnett's 5 Questions interview series; Melissa Eleftherion has four new erasure poems and a short essay on her poetics of reading books that terrify us at a young age over at cul-de-sac of blood; katie o'brien has a poem in the 'poetry pause' series via The League of Canadian Poets; and Nathanael O'Reilly has three new poems up at The Galway Review.

some author activity: Olsen, Young, Saklikar, Berlatsky, mclennan + O'Reilly,

Geoffrey Olsen has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Geoffrey Young and Renée Sarojini Saklikar; Noah Berlatsky has some poems up at Five Fleas, as well as a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; rob mclennan has a poem + a writing prompt up at Moist Poetry Journal; and Nathanael O'Reilly has new work in The Hooghly Review.

some author activity: Naughton, Swensen, O'Reilly, Mohammadi, Rogal + Beaulieu,

Katie Naughton is interviewed by Josephine Gawtry for the blog for Colorado Review, as is Cole Swensen, interviewed by Jake Friedman; Nathanael O'Reilly has work in the fourth issue of Saltbush; Khashayar Mohammadi has some new poems in The /tƐmz/ Review, as does Stan Rogal; and Derek Beaulieu offers his 2023 year in review.

some author activity: Reid, Beaulieu + Betts, mclennan, Schmaltz + O'Reilly,

Monty Reid has new work up at The Typescript; Derek Beaulieu and Gregory Betts recently collaborated on a review of Jean-Luc Champerret's The Lascaux Notebooks for Dublin journal Gorse; rob mclennan's archived zoom-reading, featured at Vancouver's Poets Corner Reading Series, is now online; Eric Schmaltz is featured in the Spotlight series; and Nathanael O'Reilly has new work up in The Bookends Review.

some author activity: Mellis, O'Reilly, Melançon + Dennis,

forthcoming author Miranda Mellis has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series via the dusie blog; Nathanael O'Reilly has new work up at axon; Jérôme Melançon has work featured in the Spotlight Series; and Amy Dennis is interviewed in the "12 or 20 questions" series

some author activity: Varrone, Pakdel, O'Reilly, Tracy, Robinson + Earl,

Here's a video that New Jersey high school students Charlie Mawn and Jonathan Kane made of Kevin Varrone’s "Poem I Wrote Sitting Across the Table from You"; Saba Pakdel has a poem in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Nathanael O'Reilly has new work up at Eastern Iowa Review; Dale Tracy is interviewed by Rob Taylor over at Read Local BC; Ben Robinson also has a poem in the "poetry pause" series; and so does Amanda Earl!

2023 #AWP (unofficial) offsite (virtual) readings : day four of five: Beaulieu, O’Reilly, Izsak, Qi + Smith,

Furthering this week’s thread as part of the above/ground press thirtieth anniversary as an adjunct to this year’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual Conference and Bookfair, today’s penultimate post wonders if anyone is even catching these? I hear these events are pretty exciting, albeit expensive. Is everyone at home simply pretending that none of this exists? It’s nearly spring, you know. Isn’t my birthday coming up as well?

Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty-five collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent volume of fiction, Silence, is forthcoming from Sweden’s Timglaset Books, his most recent volume of poetry, Surface Tension, was published by Toronto’s Coach House Books. Beaulieu has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students, the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for this dedication to literature, and is the only graduate from the University of Calgary’s Department of English to receive the Faculty of Arts ‘Celebrated Alumni Award.’ Beaulieu holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton University, is Banff’s Poet Laureate, and the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian poet; he teaches creative writing at The University of Texas at Arlington. His nine collections include Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Beir Bua Press, 2023), Boulevard (Beir Bua Press, 2021), (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020), BLUE (above/ground press, 2020) and Preparations for Departure (UWAP, 2017). His poetry appears in over one hundred journals and anthologies published in fourteen countries, including Another Chicago Magazine, Anthropocene, Cordite, The Elevation Review, Identity Theory, The Madrigal, New World Writing Quarterly, Trasna, Westerly and Wisconsin Review. He is the poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.

Emily Izsak lives and writes in Toronto, ON. Her poetry tends to combine surreal imagery, linguistic play, and formal experimentation. Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Puritan, House Organ, Cough, The Steel Chisel, The Doris, and CV2. In 2014 she was selected as PEN Canada’s New Voices Award nominee. Her first full-length collection, Whistle Stops: A Locomotive Serial Poem, was published by Signature Editions in April 2017. She has published two chapbooks with above/ground press: Twenty-five and Never Have I Ever.

Jenny Qi is the author of Focal Point, winner of the 2020 Steel Toe Books Poetry Prize. Her essays and poems have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. She has received support from organizations such as Tin House, Omnidawn, Kearny Street Workshop, and the San Francisco Writers Grotto. Born in Pennsylvania to Chinese immigrants, she grew up mostly in Las Vegas and now lives in San Francisco, where she completed her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology. She has been translating her late mother’s memoirs of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and immigration to the U.S. and is working on more essays and poems in conversation with this work.

“Note: Focal Point came out in October 2021, but Jenny is aggressively bad at making videos (in her own words) and sent this one from earlier that year.”

Pete Smith. Born in the English Midlands, then moved to Kamloops in 1974. Spent a working life supporting folk with intellectual plus psychiatric disability to find a place in the world and trying to help the rest of the world see the person in each of them – a task each generation must take up anew. Poetry published in a dozen chapbooks (above/ground, Oystercatcher, Wild Honey, Poetical Histories, and other fine presses), sundry magazines, and Bindings with Discords, 2015, from Shearsman. Reviews and essays on writers such as Alice Notley, Lisa Robertson, Lissa Wolsak, W D Snodgass, Keston Sutherland, Sharon Thesen, Barry MacSweeney, Trevor Joyce, John James can be found in such places as Agenda, The Gig, Crayon, Capilano Review, The Salt Companion to John James.  Recently preoccupied with translating Osip Mandelstam’s poems from the winter of 1933-34: some published in Snow 9 and 10. First of a series called Translation Suites appeared in Guest No. 23, edited by David Dowker.

 

new from above/ground press: DEAR NOSTALGIA, by Nathanael O'Reilly

DEAR NOSTALGIA
Nathanael O’Reilly
$5

Chronotope

I live nine thousand, one hundred and four
miles, or fourteen thousand, six hundred
and fifty-one kilometres away
from my birthplace – I also live
in the present, forty-seven years
and seven months from the moment
of my birth in a country town
crouched above the Southern Ocean,
three thousand miles north of Antarctica.
Twenty-two years and twelve days after
I entered the world with blue eyes
and white hair, received the nickname
Murph the Surf from the nurses, twenty-two
years and twelve days after the local
radio station announced my birth
and played Bowie’s Space Oddity
in my honour, I left my homeland,
lifted off and crossed the sea alone
with one black suitcase full of books
and CDs, another full of clothes.
I carried my possessions with two hands
like my ancestors boarding ships
in Ireland, England, Wales and Portugal,
launched into a distant hemisphere.
I hurtled across time and space, landed
in a new station far above my past.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian poet; he teaches creative writing at The University of Texas at Arlington. His nine collections include Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Beir Bua Press, 2023), Boulevard (Beir Bua Press, 2021), (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020), BLUE (above/ground press, 2020) and Preparations for Departure (UWAP, 2017). His poetry appears in over one hundred journals and anthologies published in fourteen countries, including Another Chicago Magazine, Anthropocene, Cordite, The Elevation Review, Identity Theory, The Madrigal, New World Writing Quarterly, Trasna, Westerly and Wisconsin Review. He is the poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.

This is O’Reilly’s second above/ground press chapbook, after BLUE (2020).

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

some author activity: Swensen, Ross, O'Reilly + mclennan,

Cole Swensen has some new work up at Harvard Review Online; Stuart Ross offers his annual New Year's poem over at his blog, and is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Nathanael O'Reilly is included in the Spotlight series; rob mclennan has a new poem up at his blog, and offers his 'best of' list of 2022 Canadian poetry books.

some author activity: fitzpatrick, Robertson, mclennan, O'Reilly, Hogg + Novak,

ryan fitzpatrick is interviewed on MODL Press (2000-2009); Lisa Robertson has a twitter-thread reposted on Kathryn Mockler's send my love to anyone; rob mclennan has a new poem, and is interviewed over at the Artisanal Writer; Nathanael O'Reilly has some new work up at The Loch Raven Review; Robert Hogg has a new poem up at The Typescript; and JoAnna Novak writes on Taylor Swift and Joe Brainard over at The Paris Review.

some author activity: O'Reilly, Siklosi, Spinosa, Chernoff, Best + the ottawa small press book fair,

Nathanael O'Reilly has a new poem up at Identity Theory; Kate Siklosi and Dani Spinosa are conducting a Late Winter Writers Residency Online through Banff Centre (apply now!); MLA Chernoff has a poem in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Ashley-Elizabeth Best has an article up at Chatelaine; and don't forget the ottawa small press book fair returns in two weeks, yes?

some author activity: Naughton, O'Reilly, Reid, Spinosa, Tate + Wilkins,

Katie Naughton is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Nathanael O'Reilly reads a poem in the "one minute poems" series via Rancid Idol Productions; Monty Reid is interviewed over at talking about strawberries all of the time, as is Dani Spinosa; Bronwen Tate is interviewed (with poems!) over at Etcetera; and both Monty Reid and Grant Wilkins are interviewed over at Pearl Pirie's blog.

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.

some author activity: Naughton, O'Reilly, Burgoyne, MacEachern, Collis + Siklosi,

Katie Naughton is interviewed in the new issue of Red Weather; Nathanael O'Reilly has a new poem up at Marathon Lit Review; Sarah Burgoyne interviews Jessi MacEachern over at Canthius; Stephen Collis is interviewed over at the Canadian Literature Podcast, "Getting Lit with Linda"; and Kate Siklosi is interviewed over at Artisanal Writer.

some author activity: O'Reilly, Ball, Niespodziany, Armantrout + Naughton,

Nathanael O'Reilly has some new work up at ANONTYM; remembering Nelson Ball; Benjamin Niespodziany has two prose poems in the new issue of Guesthouse; Rae Armantrout has a new poem online at The Yale Review; and Katie Naughton has new work up at Timber Journal.