some author activity: Tierney, Beaulieu, Saklikar + Robertson,

Orchid Tierney has new work in Posit; Derek Beaulieu is included in the Canadian Poets Series over at Peripety and/or Tronies, and is interviewed over at The Commentary, as is Renée Sarojini Saklikar; and Lisa Robertson is interviewed at David Naimon's Between the Covers.

some author activity: Barwin, Tierney, Strang, Mc Donnell, Sparrow, Swensen, Johnson + Earl,

Doreen Nicoll interviews Gary Barwin for the Small Change Podcast; Orchid Tierney has new work in petrichor; Catriona Strang has a poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Conor Mc Donnell, Noah Sparrow, Cole Swensen and Chris Johnson; and Amanda Earl is part of an assemblage of translations of John Keats over at Asymptote, as curated by Johanna Drucker.

above/ground press author spotlights : substack : Trivedi, Houglum, Tierney, Christie, Gray, Reid, Unsworth, Ballard, O’Reilly, Ladouceur, Sikkema, Siklosi, Norris, Nećakov, Saklikar, Fagan, Earl + Downs,

Since building my above/ground press substack last spring, I've started posting a series of interviews with above/ground press authors (new platform, new project, after all), focusing on authors published through the press with a new/recent chapbook, as well as multiple publications with the press, to give each interview a bit more heft. Since May, I've posted interviews with Amish Trivedi, Brook Houglum, Orchid Tierney, Jason Christie, Steph Gray, Monty Reid, Lydia Unsworth, Micah Ballard, Nathanael O’Reilly, Ben Ladouceur, Michael Sikkema, Kate Siklosi, Ken Norris, Lillian Nećakov, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Cary Fagan, Amanda Earl and Buck Downs, with forthcoming interviews still to post with poets including russell carisse, Pearl Pirie, Guy Birchard, Jill Stengel, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, N.W. Lea and Gary Barwin, among others. Otherwise, I do post a round-up of new publications every two months or so, as well as a round-up of the weekly "author activity" posts, also every two months or so (but I didn't want the substack to simply be a replication of the blog, right?) Free to sign up! And lands as an email, direct to your in-box. Huzzah! And can you believe the press turns thirty-three years old this summer? Gadzooks!

some author activity: Saklikar, Eleftherion, Tierney, Cook, Campos, Niespodziany + Rogal,

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is interviewed by The British Columbia Review; Melissa Eleftherion, Orchid Tierney, Juliet Cook, Isabel Sobral Campos and Benjamin Niespodziany all have work up in the new issue of Action, Spectacle; and Stan Rogal has three poems up at The Temz Review.

some author activity: Kelly, mclennan, Tierney, Sandhu + Gray,

J-T Kelly has a stack of poems up at UCity Review, and is featured over at Poetry is Currency; rob mclennan has a new poem up at Scrivener Creative Review; Rebecca Hawkes, John Garaets, and Orchid Tierney talk about Big Poetry, her collection this abattoir is a college, and MFA programmes via Zoom recording; Mandy Sandhu has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; and I'd somehow missed that Stephanie Gray had a series of pieces posted over at Jacket2.

some author activity: Graham, Barwin, Ross, Mellis, mclennan + Tierney,

Lea Graham has a poem up at The Fortnightly Review; Gary Barwin has a poem up at NewPoetry; Stuart Ross has new work up at The Glacier; Miranda Mellis writes on Robert (Bob) Glück for BOMB magazine; rob mclennan has a poem up at Poem Alone, two more up at Blood+Honey, and is interviewed by Mia Funk for The Creative Process; and Orchid Tierney is hosting a free, virtual zine workshop, “pedagogies for the planthroposcene!,” on August 8 at noon as part of Sarabande Books's ⚡ZINE LUNCH!⚡ series.

some author activity: Tierney, Skrabalak, Carr, Robinson, Shea + Eleftherion,

Orchid Tierney is the third in the above/ground press author spotlights via the above/ground press substack; Ryan Skrabalak is interviewed alongside Robbie Wing by Miriam Atkin for "Specific Objects," WGXC: Radio for Open Ears; Julie Carr and Elizabeth Robinson have new work in the latest issue of Posit; Michael Martin Shea has some new translations of poems by Augusto Lunel over at Black Sun Lit; and Melissa Eleftherion has new work up Stone Circle Review.

video from an above/ground press zoom launch : May 28, 2025 : Tierney, Quartermain, Houglum, Doller, Jenks + mclennan

the recording of a recent above/ground press zoom launch is now online : May 28, 2025 : with readings by above/ground press authors Orchid Tierney (OH), Meredith Quartermain (BC), Brook Houglum (BC), Sandra Doller (NY), Tom Jenks (UK) and rob mclennan (ON). Do you remember the other above/ground press zoom launch from last year, as well? And be sure to catch a bunch of other videos over at the YouTube channel, including the ongoing 'virtual reading series' via periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics.

see author biographies for the event here

above/ground press zoom launch! Tierney, Quartermain, Houglum, Doller + Jenks, May 28 2025

Check out the above/ground press ZOOM launch we’re doing on Wednesday, May 28, 7pm EDT, with myself reading alongside:

Orchid Tierney (OH)
Meredith Quartermain (BC)
Brook Houglum (BC)
Sandra Doller (NY)
and
Tom Jenks (UK)

, all of whom have recent above/ground press titles. Join via the link, here.

Author biographies:

Orchid Tierney is a poet and scholar from Aotearoa New Zealand. Her collections include this abattoir is a college (Calamari Archive, 2025) and a year of misreading the wildcats (The Operating System 2019). She is the author of several chapbooks including looking at the Tiny: Mad lichen on the surfaces of reading (Essay Press, 2023), my beatrice (Ottawa: above/ground, 2020), ocean plastic (BlazeVOX, 2019), and blue doors (Belladonna* Press, 2018). Tierney is the coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics, and her scholarship has appeared in SubStance, Jacket2, The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry, Teaching the Literature of Climate Change, and The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics Since 1900. She is a senior editor at The Kenyon Review.

She is launching her second above/ground press title, pedagogies for the planthroposcene (May 2025), following my beatrice (2020)

Brook Houglum published the chapbook Anthronoise with above/ground press in 2024. She teaches at Capilano University and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia on unceded Skwxwú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ lands.

She is launching her second above/ground press title, INVENTORY (April 2025)

Meredith Quartermain’s most recent book is Lullabies in the Real World (shortlisted for an Alberta Book Publishers’ award). Vancouver Walking won a BC Book Award for Poetry, and Nightmarker was a finalist for a Vancouver Book Award. She is also the author of two novels and two books of short fiction: Recipes from the Red Planet (BC fiction award finalist) and I, Bartleby. From 2014-2016, she served as Poetry Mentor in the SFU Writer’s Studio program. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Prism International, The Dalhousie Review, Event Magazine, The Capilano Review, Golden Handcuffs Review, and many other magazines.

She is launching Things Musing (April 2025), her fourth publication but first chapbook through above/ground press, following the broadsides “December 4” (#168, April 2003) and “Geography” (#225, 2005), and “Highway 99,” produced as issue #35 of STANZAS magazine (October 2003)

Tom Jenks is a writer and text artist living in Manchester, UK. His books include The Philosopher (Sublunary Editions), Melamine (The Red Ceilings Press) and Pack My Box with Five Dozen Liquor Jugs (Penteract Press), a pangrammatical novel with Catherine Vidler. He edits the small press zimzalla, specialising in literary objects. More at https://tomjenks.uk/

He is launching his above/ground press debut, Chimneys (May 2025)

Sandra Doller is the author of several books of poetry, prose, translation, and the in-between from the most valiant and precarious small presses—Les Figues, Ahsahta, Subito, and Sidebrow Books. Her newest book, Not Now Now, is forthcoming from Rescue Press. Doller is the founder of an international literary arts journal and independent press, 1913 a journal of forms/1913 Press, where she remains éditrice-in-chief, publishing poetry, poetics, prose, and all else by emerging and established writers. She lives in the USA, for now.

She is launching her above/ground press debut, I’ll try this hour (March 2025)

new from above/ground press: pedagogies for the planthroposcene, by Orchid Tierney

pedagogies for the planthroposcene
Orchid Tierney
$5

it’s amazing    how fires unfurl strange weathers   brown husks carve         

                   hills tacky with ash      unseasonal fires every season

are a kind bomb      arson is endless repetition       in a hot system        

             feedback notations      craven fires like tourists         

grousing trees and      lichen with fiery indifference      another network

           of dirty looks      smoldering      and smoke trees transfer riches

                   to seedlings      or that stump      there on the hill         

           defines what health      care is      a flashfire      sprouts too soon            

                      charred roots enjoy such strange      world endings    

                           corpse grey dirt      new urfs to grow in

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

Orchid Tierney is a poet and scholar from Aotearoa New Zealand. Her collections include this abattoir is a college (Calamari Archive, 2025) and a year of misreading the wildcats (The Operating System 2019). She is the author of several chapbooks including looking at the Tiny: Mad lichen on the surfaces of reading (Essay Press, 2023), my beatrice (Ottawa: above/ground, 2020), ocean plastic (BlazeVOX, 2019), and blue doors (Belladonna* Press, 2018). Tierney is the coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics, and her scholarship has appeared in SubStance, Jacket2, The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry, Teaching the Literature of Climate Change, and The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics Since 1900. She is a senior editor at The Kenyon Review.

This is Tierney’s second above/ground press title, after my beatrice (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: Clayton, Tierney, Varrone + Beaulieu,

Conyer Clayton has two new poems in carte blanche; Orchid Tierney has two new poems posted in Plant-Human Quarterly; Kevin Varrone is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; and Derek Beaulieu is named Banff's new poet laureate!

some author activity: Naughton, Tierney, Brockwell, Johnson + Flowers,

Katie Naughton has some new work up at Tagvverk, as does Orchid Tierney; Stephen Brockwell has a new poem up at The Typescript; Chris Johnson has four new poems in the October issue of deathcap; and Neil Flowers is being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews.

some author activity: Collis, Rogal, Tierney + Boyle,

Stephen Collis is featured in the "Spotlight" series; Stan Rogal has new poems up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as well as an interview; Orchid Tierney is also interviewed there; and Frances Boyle has a new poem up at The Maynard.

some author activity: Cooley, Tierney, o'brien, Carpenter + Dennis,

Dennis Cooley has a poem in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Orchid Tierney has some new poems in the latest issue of Marsh Hawk Press; forthcoming author katie o'brien has a poem in the "poetry pause" series as well; J.R. Carpenter displays her Edmonton surroundings as part of the virtual VERSeFest 2020; and Michael Dennis receives the Meet the Presses' Special Recognition Award for Commitment and Devotion to Small Press.

some author activity: Betts, Collis, Mohammadi, Kaplan + Tierney,

Gregory Betts has some new work up at The Pi Review, as does Stephen Collis; Khashayar Mohammadi has new poems up at Watch Your Head; Point Loma Nazarene University is holding their 22nd annual Poetry Day on September 24, 2020, featuring afternoon and evening events with forthcoming above/ground press author Genevieve Kaplan; and Orchid Tierney is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Unsworth, Earl, Tierney, mclennan + Spinosa/Siklosi,

Lydia Unsworth has some new work up at Tentacular; Amanda Earl offers some nice words for the above/ground press anniversary (and a visual poem!) over at her blog; Orchid Tierney has some recent work up at Ethel; Jenya Stashkov asked rob mclennan for an interview and a poem, both of which appear here in English, as well as translated into Russian; Dani Spinosa and Kate Siklosi answer the "ottawa small press book fair : home editions" questions over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

new from above/ground press: my beatrice, by Orchid Tierney

my beatrice
orchid tierney
$5

VII

My Beatrice & I watch the primary

debates because we are monstrous fictions.

This, excites Beatrice, is the moment when

the evil Brain arrives from Planet Arous.

I look backward to the nuclear sequence

where everyone is incinerated. Then it is

three minutes to midnight. A woman without

perfume refuses Dante’s future. I believe in

demons & sprites. I believe in canopies

so tired from painful touching. There is

little difference between twilights & mourning.

Beatrice, some days her muse will ace her desire.

“If you’re ever going to love me,” put on the drier.

I will deliver her punchline after I forget my joke.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Orchid Tierney is an Aotearoa-New Zealand poet and scholar, currently living in Gambier, Ohio, where she teaches at Kenyon College. She is the author of a year of misreading the wildcats (Operating System, 2019) and Earsay (TrollThread 2016), and chapbooks ocean plastic (BlazeVOX 2019), blue doors (Belladonna* Press), Gallipoli Diaries (GaussPDF 2017), the world in small parts (Dancing Girl Press, 2012), and Brachiaction (Gumtree, 2012). Other poems, reviews, and scholarship have appeared in Jacket2, Journal of Modern Literature, and Western Humanities Review, among others. She is a consulting editor for the Kenyon Review.

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