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.

some author activity: mclennan, MacEachern, Burgoyne, Macdonald + the ottawa small press book fair,

rob mclennan has a new poem up at Shadows and Sax; catch Jessi MacEachern and Sarah Burgoyne in conversation via Canthius; Dawn Macdonald has a new essay up at The Wood-Lot; and today is the ottawa small press book fair!

new from above/ground press: TAKE COVER, EVERYONE, by Clara Yeager and Sarah Burgoyne

TAKE COVER, EVERYONE
Clara Yeager and Sarah Burgoyne
$6

Fish that I am, and what I am.
I hold impressive secrets. They fill my ears.
Fridge in the back of my fish cave. Yes, 
I am brave. I am. Am I?

Windows peer into my eel-like soul that jolts electrically
when I listen. I only hear screams
Oh-so-da-Gama-ray…

Why was it that when I dyed my hair you stared
at me with dismay, like the auburn-coloured rocks
that you gave me on my 734th birthday, like the yarn
with which I spin this incredible sub-aquatic tale. 

Unseaward is my name and my father’s. And his father’s
and not his father but his mother’s. 

Seabored, yes I am that. Dear reader, 
try to discover with me this light in my skull
that guides my future descendants back home. 

Plastic may be the main terrestrial ingredient of Garbage Island
but I wish to leave. 

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

Clara Yeager and Sarah Burgoyne have collaborated on three poetry collections, Take Cover Everyone, Yes, Your Majesty and We’ve Lost Our Celebrity. Each of their titles is based on a line Clara has uttered on stage and each book is written in the span of three hours. Sarah Burgoyne is the author of Because the Sun (Coach House: 2021), Saint Twin (Mansfield: 2016) and Mechanophilia (Anvil: 2023), an infinite collaboration with American poet Vi Khi Nao. Clara Yeager is a grade nine student in Montreal and an actrice who has starred in productions such as Mean Girls the Musical as Karen, as well as Anything Goes, Frozen and Legally Blonde. They have been friends for over a decade. 

This is Sarah Burgoyne’s fifth above/ground press title, after A Precarious Life on the Sea (2016), TENTACULUM SONNETS (2020), the collaborative WHERE FORTH ART THOUGH (with Susan Burgoyne; 2020) and AN ACCURATE CIGARETTE: Poetry & Prompts (2026).

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: AN ACCURATE CIGARETTE: Poetry & Prompts, by Sarah Burgoyne

AN ACCURATE CIGARETTE
Poetry & Prompts
Sarah Burgoyne
$6

Go outside and record what happens or occurs to you for 15 minutes. Make it into a poem. 

 
THE SOUND OF WATER RUNNING

The sound of water is running. It trickles over the balcony, across the alley, into another sound. A child’s voice through a downstairs shutter says, tell me now. Possibly, possibly, says Nana. The wind creates the ivy’s hair which dangles in the breeze. The next plant folds its hands to make a bird. A letter appears, containing a yes or no while closed. The downstairs voices sing beneath the sound of a plane. The plant’s bamboo crutch stabs into the sky. Finish your banana, nana. Child’s voice judders into song. It’s time for bed. Door creak. Am I in or outside of my head? The plane continues not to land. The child protests. The little table, stained under heat and duress, will last the winter. Pom-pom plant. Bird call: a long trilled note. Night’s morse code. Howling dog. Car honk. Trill, again, and bow-wow. 


ADD WARRIORS : AN INTRODUCTION

I have been leading a little group called Poetry Studio, usually in the colder, lonelier months of Montréal winter, on and off for some years now. I had this idea that writing in real time (as opposed to bringing in pre-written work… sometimes already dead in the water) would help us to preserve the energy in a first draft that can be easily stamped out for fear of the poem being “too weird” or “not making sense.” The formula of our meetings is simple. We discuss poetry and poetics from something we read together that week, I provide a related prompt, we part and write for 45 minutes, we return and share what we wrote. (It is scary but people are kind.) Everything, no matter how raw or random, is taken as poetry. As Wittgenstein points out, “To say, ‘This combination of words makes no sense’ excludes it from the sphere of language and thereby bounds the domain of language. But when one draws a boundary it may be for various kinds of reason.” Yes, let us ponder, enumerate and celebrate the reasons! I have encountered many stupendous, “non-sense” poems this way. When I was a youngsome poet, in Tim Lilburn’s workshop at the University of Victoria, he wrote “add warriors” on one of my submissions, and nothing else. I took this into my most haunted and blue insomniac hours. What could this mean. Many years later, I wonder if this was his attempt to preserve and foster a strangeness in my early work, what Shklovsky calls “defamiliarization.” What other comment was I expecting? What other comment, now that I think of it, is even possible? In this weird little chapbook, I thought to share some of the prompts behind the poems as a way of fostering some strangeness in your own poetry, if you so happen to write it. Maybe you have never written poetry before. The corresponding poems were written in the span of 30-45 minutes, and if there is any editing, it is very light. Of course, they reflect but one way forward in the infinite paths that branch from a writing prompt. As I tell participants in Poetry Studio, use the prompt as a starting off point, but go where the poem wants to go. And if the poem is too obedient, add warriors. 

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

Cover art by Paige Cooper.

Sarah Burgoyne is the author of Because the Sun (Coach House: 2021), Saint Twin (Mansfield: 2016) and Mechanophilia (Anvil: 2023), an infinite collaboration with American poet Vi Khi Nao.

This is Sarah Burgoyne’s fourth above/ground press title, after A Precarious Life on the Sea (2016), TENTACULUM SONNETS (2020) and the collaborative WHERE FORTH ART THOUGH (with Susan Burgoyne; 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: McElroy, Thomas, Burgoyne, Norris, Bolster, Swensen + eckhoff,

Gil McElroy has some new work in long con magazine, as does Hugh Thomas and even Sarah Burgoyne, offering her thoughts on the work of Gail Scott; part four of Ken Norris' memoir, "Confessions of a True Believer," is now online; Stephanie Bolster answers questions over at On Creative Writing; Cole Swensen has some work up at Big Other; and kevin mcpherson eckhoff has started to publish fiction.

Jay Miller reviews Sarah Burgoyne's The Tentaculum Sonnets (2020)

Montreal poet, translator and reviewer Jay Miller was good enough to provide the first review for Sarah Burgoyne's The Tentaculum Sonnets (2020) over at Bibelotages. Thanks so much! You can read the original post here.

some author activity: Burgoyne, Houbolt, Downs + Mangold,

Kevin Heslop interviewed Sarah Burgoyne for The Miramichi Reader; Kyla Houbolt is interviewed via the Of Poetry Podcast; Buck Downs has a new poem up at HillRag; and Sarah Mangold has new poems up at Ghost Proposal, and is interviewed by Shriram Sivaramakrishnan for Poetry Northwest.

some author activity: parizeau, Ball, Rukeyser, mclennan + Burgoyne,

df parizeau has a new poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series via the dusie blog; there is a short write-up on the work of the late Nelson Ball, as well as some poems, up at brief poems; Susan Rukeyser reads her piece "Less a man than a gun" over at YouTube; rob mclennan is interviewed by Colin Dardis over at Fill Your Books!; and Sarah Burgoyne reads work from her new Turret House Press chapbook over at YouTube.

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: Burgoyne, Solomon, mclennan, Norris, Gold, Bowering, Siklosi + Witte,

Sarah Burgoyne collaborates on some poems with Misha Solomon, via Solomon's substack; rob mclennan responds to the "Six Questions" interview via Chaudiere Books; Ken Norris, Artie Gold, George Bowering + Kate Siklosi, etcetera have new work in mouse eggs; and Valerie Witte is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Sharp, Burgoyne, O'Reilly, Hogg + Siklosi

Travis Sharp has some new work posted as part of Echo Verse; Sarah Burgoyne has some new work at Long Con Magazine; Nathanael O'Reilly has a new poem up at Sheila-Na-Gig, and a new poem in the "Tuesday poem" series via dusie; Robert Hogg participates in the "Six Questions" interview series via Chaudiere Books; and Kate Siklosi has new work up at Osmosis.

new from above/ground press: WHERE FORTH ART THOUGH, by S. Burgoyne and S. Burgoyne

WHERE FORTH ART THOUGH
S. Burgoyne and S. Burgoyne
$5

UNSHARED CUSTODY

The market lemons were too perfect. Almost plastic surge. Your latest urge to go the distance was far too much effort. I couldn't know if I'd stay the same, or if I'd hold it all for you.

Don't forget it, sweetchops.

You feel the distance and yet you know the squids still approach nightly. How was I to know that you can't always have the last peanut?

She was my little peanut. And then your annoying photos from Germany. Why can't I find peace? What is the last time you ever did?

Jump. It's never too high or too scary when
you're not alone.

*

S. Burgoyne and S. Burgoyne, mother and daughter, have been flouting their attempted mastery of all the proper auxiliary verbs and English nouns since S. Burgoyne (the elder) imbued her offspring toward lexicography on many long road trips across our great nation where said offspring were held captive by infant carseats and seatbelts in the enclosed space of the vehicle, unable to escape this attempt to mould them into vocabularists.  Choosing to bypass such infantile games as “Count the Cows” as they traversed the miles, S.Burgoyne (the elder) incorporated light-hearted merriment into a game she invented and creatively entitled “Dictionary” utilizing an approximately 30 pound tome which also served as a booster seat or step stool for her wee children.  This raucous car game involved compelling her young daughters (one a mere babe) into the realm of polysyllabism by reading the dictionary aloud to them and providing examples of usage for future reference (eg. “I was pleased to see your post-jentacular effort to brush your teeth this morning although that tittynope of Cheerios did not go unnoticed on your plate, Sweetie!” or “I expect full impignoration to participate in this car game - ignore those bovines!”  S. Burgoyne, (the elder) was apparently successful in inspiring S.Burgoyne (the second) to follow her bibliophilic tendencies for as it turned out, S. Burgoyne (the second) felt loathe to yield her future to any other professional realm than that of logophile. She thus followed her destiny to become, none other than a delightful amalgam of poetess, librettist, dramaturgist and rhapsodist - which one can easily discern from her manner of speech and the unique intonations with which she speaks, constantly uttering a veritable plethora of gymnastic linguistic phraseologies to the delight of all her compatriats.

Over the years, S. Burgoyne and S. Burgoyne have fully indulged their passionate lingoisms and have spewed forth countless written and spoken words, even to the point of inventing an unusual S.Burgoyne-esque vernacular (perhaps a podcast will be forthcoming - stay tuned!) Although they each reside across a vast geographic expanse, they always manage to indulge their passion for repartee and serendipitously string together nonsensical narratives through wordplay and occasional mild tipsyness (which thereby absolves them of any serious literary accountability or subjectivity to literary criticism of any kind).  And so therefore, most capital and esteemed captives, this is a rare exposure of meaningful, unforgettable and riveting drivel submitted in the spirit of extreme kakorrhaphiophobia.  Please do not hold them responsible for surrendering the time you are about to spend pondering this ludicrous collection.

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

Susan Burgoyne has created many extensive publications in her mind over the years. This is her first publication on paper.

Sarah Burgoyne’s first collection Saint Twin (Mansfield Press: 2016) was nominated for the A.M. Klein prize. Her second manuscript is coming out with Coach House Press in 2021.

This is Sarah Burgoyne’s third above/ground press title, after A Precarious Life on the Sea (2016) and TENTACULUM SONNETS (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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

poetry pause : the league of canadian poets

Thanks to The League of Canadian Poets' "poetry pause" series for helping celebrate twenty-seven years of above/ground press! The series allowed me to curate ten authors for recent slots, all of whom are Canadian (and/or Canadian-based) authors with 2020 above/ground press publications. Most of the poems included in the series are reprinted from their collections, but a few even provided new poems! Here are the authors' names, with the links to their "poetry pause" poems: Dani Spinosa, George Stanley, Khashayar Mohammadi, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Sarah Burgoyne, Lance La Rocque, J.R. Carpenter, Leesa Dean, Razielle Aigen and Dale Tracy. Can you believe we're twenty-seven years deep? What might the rest of the year bring? We are so close to thirty!

new from above/ground press: TENTACULUM SONNETS, by Sarah Burgoyne

TENTACULUM SONNETS
Sarah Burgoyne
$4

at the enunciation of you, bloom
                of witch broom
autumn. love brocades its long lung game    
    and lets me in your house.         running
the cold gold line to find you,   
                winters:

a slender limb rushing as flex or bright
animal bough, especially opiate around
the night-mouth of a mollusk or urchin, an opal is you
used for grasping, moon-mouth, aloof, moving
about, your moon-bearing sense organs, vervain (in this, a gazebo)
a light which is the moon (in a plant) a tendril
the night's noon or a tender glandular hair.
            a look across the mim-
icking glass, the form which
is sound and pines bursting with ice, my voice
is the spider in your alley, its
                haunting shake.

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

Cover art: Mara Eagle

Sarah Burgoyne’s first collection Saint Twin (Mansfield Press: 2016) was nominated for the A.M. Klein prize. Her second manuscript is coming out with Coach House Books in 2021.

This is Burgoyne’s second above/ground press title, after A Precarious Life on the Sea (2016). A further is forthcoming.

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

some author activity: Izsak, Christie, Burgoyne, Sweeney, Spinosa, Beaulieu + Ball,

Emily Izsak, Jason Christie, Sarah Burgoyne and Heather Sweeney have new work in the sixteenth issue of where is the river; Dani Spinosa has a new visual poem up at Train : a poetry journal; Derek Beaulieu is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; and Ryan Pratt has a new piece on working through the late Nelson Ball's literary archive.

some author activity: Mangold, Burgoyne, Cantrell + Aigen,

Sarah Mangold is interviewed at talking about strawberries all of the time; Sarah Burgoyne has a poem in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Andrew Cantrell has a new poem in the Tuesday poem series via the dusie blog; and Razielle Aigen has new work up at Terse Journal.

some author activity: Pirie, Tucker, Burgoyne, Braune + Notley,

Pearl Pirie is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews, as is Aaron Tucker; Sarah Burgoyne has three sonnets up at Lemonhound 3.0; Sean Braune has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; and Alice Notley is interviewed by Ottawa's artsfile.

new from above/ground press: A Precarious Life on the Sea, Sarah Burgoyne

A Precarious Life on the Sea
Sarah Burgoyne
$4

PARTICULAR HEXES

White omens in the sky making shapes of us. I decide to wear all my medallions at once. Found a snout in the basil plant. Who can blame. You, in the small frame. Glasses and longsuffering. I sent you a letter on the subject of broccoli. What’s another word for sacrament?

Summer séances spent welcoming a new ice age in hospital gowns. No one visits, and if they do, we stick ‘em. Having not been coordinated enough to find a new castle. Always the first to go. No sons or daughters come to sing hymns around. Unmothered in the off season.

A strange hand under a young chin. Most times, your dreamer is the enemy. I spend the night writing Westerns, answering yes and yes to true or false. I guess I need to live up to fatherhood. Grow my summer antlers. See how far the voodoo lily will stretch.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2016
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Sarah Burgoyne was born and raised on Canada’s West Coast. Her first manuscript, Saint Twin, is being published with Mansfield Press in 2016 and is gigantic.

[Sarah Burgoyne launches A Precarious Life on the Sea in Ottawa alongside Julie Morrissy and Claire Farley as part of The Factory Reading Series, March 26, 2016]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

The Factory Reading Series: Morrissy, Burgoyne + Farley, March 26, 2016

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

The Factory Reading Series:

Julie Morrissy (Dublin)
Sarah Burgoyne (Montreal)
+ Claire Farley (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, March 26, 2016;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Julie Morrissy is a poet from Dublin currently living in her home city after spending a number of years living in Canada and the USA. In 2015 she was shortlisted for the Melita Hume Poetry Prize in the UK, and selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. Her work has published widely in Ireland, the UK, and Canada. Morrissy has performed readings at the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, the International Literature Festival Dublin, and on national radio. Her debut poetry pamphlet I Am Where is published by Eyewear Press in the UK.

Sarah Burgoyne [pictured] is from Canada's West Coast and currently lives in Montreal. Her first book of poetry, Saint Twin, is being published with Mansfield Press in the spring of 2016. She will be launching a new chapbook with above/ground press.

Claire Farley lives and works in Ottawa where she is the co-founder and editor of Canthius, a feminist literary journal. Her poetry has been published in The Apeiron Review, The Minetta Review, ottawater, The Peter F. Yacht Club and in the workshop anthology assignment: zero (above/ground press, 2015). She has writing forthcoming in some mark made, a publication considering hybrid, material literary practices.