The Nelson Ball Prize: Margaret Christakos wins! and Peter Jaeger's shortlist write-up,

Congratulations to Toronto poet Margaret Christakos, who recently won The Nelson Ball Prize for That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press, 2024)! 2025 judges Bev Daurio and James McDonald included, as you might already know, Peter Jaeger's Selected Memoirs (above/ground press, 2024) on their shortlist, so here's the judge's citations for such (you can see the citations for all five of the shortlist titles, including Christakos', as well as a short interview with Christakos, here):

Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
by Peter Jaeger

Peter Jaeger is the author of several books and has written on a wide variety of topics, from ecology to John Cage. His chapbook Selected Memoirs addresses six and a half decades of one life, in thirty passages varying in length from twenty-five words to a couple of pages. Some passages cover several years, some only one. Much is missing; most of the life under consideration; yet the book feels complete and open at the same time. Its observations are as much by omission as by what they state; there are great gaps of time and context between some sections, between years, between sentences within entries. The passages and the spaces between them combine to create a perfect broken mashed-together record of existence, implying that much is forgotten.

Jaeger touches on the intellectual, the mundane, sweetness and regret, the greater world, the inner world, worlds imagined. There is a tipping between the real, and memory. Jaeger touches on horror (2001), a puzzling comment by a colleague (1997-98), unique experiences in the real world, "Scuba drift in the Red Sea" (2002-03) and times of want: "That winter Frank and I wore our heavy coats inside the house and clutched empty whiskey bottles filled with hot water to keep our hands warm." (1983).

Listing topics and descrying polarities and their subtle tensions, however, does not do the book justice, because so much of its joy is contained in its delicate, startling details and striking, unexpected shifts. The entry for 1966 reads: "Meditating in Bellwoods Park on a sunny afternoon in Toronto, I saw myself and the world as a continuous field of subatomic particles. I still remained deeply interested in the alphabet."

Although written in seemingly straightforward prose, Selected Memoirs is replete with moments of incredible writing, and a participatory poetics, where gaps and leaps ask the reader to consider all that is not there and what is hidden. Jaeger creates a small world of serenity, by turns warm, winsome, vulnerable, and quietly profound.

Peter Jaeger is on the 2025 Nelson Ball Prize short list! (along w Stebner, Christakos etc

Congratulations to the entire 2025 Nelson Ball Prize short list! (do you remember the longlist?) Naturally, it is very exciting to see an above/ground press title on the list, by Canadian poet Peter Jaeger, as well as titles by above/ground press authors Margaret Christakos (author of the 2019 title Retreat Diary 2019) and Kevin Stebner (author of the 2023 title AGALMA). In case you aren't aware:

The Nelson Ball Prize, worth $1,000, is awarded annually to a Canadian poet for a published work that features 'poetry of observation.' * The judges this year are James McDonald and Beverley Daurio. Stay tuned for announcement of the winning publication in the first week of December.

Here's the full list of shortlisted titles:

Margaret Christakos, That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press)
Jeremy Clarke, Stone Hours (Rufus Books)
Peter Jaeger, Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
Kevin Stebner, Inherent (Assembly Press)
Michael Trussler, 10:10 (Icehouse Poetry)

Peter Jaeger is on the 2025 Nelson Ball Prize long list! (along w Stebner, Robinson, Christakos etc

Congratulations to the entire 2025 Nelson Ball Prize long list! Naturally, it is very exciting to see an above/ground press title on the list, by Canadian poet Peter Jaeger, as well as titles by above/ground press authors Margaret Christakos (author of the 2019 title Retreat Diary 2019), Ben Robinson (author of three above/ground press titles, most recently the 2023 title Between the Lakes) and Kevin Stebner (author of the 2023 title AGALMA). In case you aren't aware:

The Nelson Ball Prize, worth $1,000, is awarded annually to a Canadian poet for a published work that features 'poetry of observation.' * The judges this year are James McDonald and Beverley Daurio. Stay tuned for the Short List, and then the announcement of the winning publication.

Here's the full list of longlisted titles:

Margaret Christakos, That Audible Slippage (University of Alberta Press)
Jeremy Clarke, Stone Hours (Rufus Books)
Peter Jaeger, Selected Memoirs (above/ground press)
Dawn Macdonald, Northerny (University of Alberta Press)
Michael Ondaatje, A Year of Last Things (McClelland & Stewart)
Ben Robinson, As Is (ARP Books)
Angeline Schellenberg, Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press)
Kevin Stebner, Inherent (Assembly Press)
Michael Trussler, 10:10 (Icehouse Poetry)
Matthew Walsh, Terrarium (Icehouse Poetry)

new from above/ground press: SELECTED MEMOIRS, by Peter Jaeger

SELECTED MEMOIRS
Peter Jaeger
$5  

1960-69
My mother put her pregnant belly in front of the mono speaker while listening to Beethoven. The importance of infant and adult tools. First group exhibition, Meadowbrook Elementary School, Lachine, Quebec. How limitless the summer holidays. Photos of trees, taken before we all missed trees. All those balloons everywhere. At Sunday school I was supposed to put a dime in the collection basket, but once I only had a quarter, so when the basket came around for the collection, I put the quarter in and took out 15 cents and when the teacher saw me making change she yelled, "You're stealing from God!" so I got up, left the class, and went outside to the church yard, where I climbed way up high in a maple tree. Sitting on a porch in suburban Montreal, I saw a bright red light fall through the summer sky. For years I believed it was a UFO. That night set up a long chain of events, still felt today. Or did it? We ate meat every day. Playing with radiant dolls on the lawn. At that time, something awful was happening on our black and white TV about Viet Nam. The empty cowboy, his six-shooter, the scary dark. The importance of my father’s laughter for social stability. Spinning around on our egg chair. Although I played at being an astronaut all summer, I slept through Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. My mother slathered medicated tar on my eczema. Endlessly watching the yellow and orange label spin around and around on the Capitol records 45 of All You Need is Love. It was so important that I climbed to the top of our front-yard maple on a windy day. Sitting in the sun wrapped in wool with a plastic toy ukulele. The snow formed mountains that we stuck our broken hockey sticks into, making Himalaya ledges to perch on in the cold. My sister Laurie and I sat cross-legged on the floor of our enormous Pontiac on the way to see our grandmother. Taking the narrow, winding path deeper into her woods rather than the strait path to the orchard. We celebrated with early forms of plastic. Caspar the friendly frontier town. I burrowed further into the darkness and silence of a snow bank by the road, wondering if the blades of a snow blower would suddenly appear and cut me into pieces, turning the snow pink with blood.  By the creek, clear light, not yet named.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Peter Jaeger is a Canadian writer based in Bristol, England. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and criticism, as well as several artist books. Jaeger has written on such diverse topics as John Cage, ecology, Marcel Proust, Zen Buddhism, and contemporary pilgrimage. Recent publications include Postamble for an Invisible Sangha (If P then Q 2021) and 10,000 Hand-Drawn Questions (Pamenar 2022).

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

Evening Will Come: beaulieu, Earl, Hajnoczky, McElroy, Simpson, timewell + mclennan,

A special "Canadian Feature," posted as the May issue of Evening Will Come, a fragment of The Volta, is now online, featuring poetic statements by a slew of above/ground press authors (and some not-yet-authors), including: derek beaulieu, Amanda Earl, Helen Hajnoczky, Peter Jaeger, Gil McElroy, Erín Moure, Nikki Reimer, Natalie Simpson and lary timewell, as well as a brief introduction by guest-editor rob mclennan.

some author activity: Armantrout, Reid, mclennan, Jaeger, McNair + the above/ground press 19th anniversary!

(photo of our Lemonade) Rae Armantrout's poem "Chirality" appears as an animation; Monty Reid is building a new website; rob mclennan and upcoming above/ground press author Peter Jaeger have short short stories online at Reader's Digest Canada; and Christine McNair now has an interview up at Canadian Poets Petting Cats.

Details will be coming out soon about the above/ground press nineteenth anniversary reading/party/launch on Thursday, August 9th at The Mercury Lounge, Ottawa, with readings and launches by Cameron Anstee, Marilyn Irwin, Stephen Brockwell and others tba. Check back here for details!