some author activity: Brenner, Adams, Smith, Pirie, McElroy, Pittella, Banks + Rhodes,

Summer Brenner has an essay up at Literary Hub; Carrie Olivia Adams was recently featured on the podcast Plain Reading; Mahaila Smith has a new poem up at the DOG TEETH newsletter; and Pearl Pirie offers her report on the recent above/ground press 31st anniversary reading/event/launch, featuring readings by herself, alongside Gil McElroy, Carlos A. Pittella, Mahaila Smith, Chris Banks and Shane Rhodes!

report: the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading/launch/party!

You probably already know, but I hosted an above/ground press thirty-first anniversary reading/launch/party at RedBird last night, featuring readings and chapbook launches by Chris Banks (Kitchener), Mahaila Smith (Ottawa), Gil McElroy (North Bay), Pearl Pirie (rural QC) Carlos A. Pittella (Montreal) and Shane Rhodes (Ottawa). Anniversaries are the best! And don't forget that the press is running a big anniversary sale until the end of this month.

It was good to have another in-person anniversary event! Do you remember my report from last year's anniversary reading? Or the 2019 one? I mean, I think these reports help keep such events in memory. Remember the twenty-fifth anniversary event (when the t-shirts were introduced, for example) or the twenty-third anniversary event (including the Toronto event that same year) or the nineteenth anniversary event? So many events! Wishing I'd actually archived the big tenth anniversary event as well, but that was well before the full advent of blogs, after all (well, five minutes before all of that). I had ten readers, two musical acts (including Emm Gryner) and CBC Radio's Alan Neal hosting, produced by Elaina Martin, who went on to found and produce Ottawa's infamous Westfest. Remember that? I don't even remember all who I had to read for that event. Michael Dennis, certainly, along with (I think) Stephen Brockwell, AJ Dolman, Colin Morton, John Barton and Karen Massey. Who else? All I can find online is this reference to the event via Bywords.

Thanks very much to RedBird, including bartenders Josephine and Taylor, who were kind and attentive hosts, and Christine McNair (above, with Grant Wilkins) who ran both the door and the book table. And, honestly, if you want music lessons or your kids want music lessons, check out RedBird. Our wee Aoife has been doing ukulele lessons there for a while and she absolutely loves it.

It was a great crowd! And good to see further above/ground press authors, including Stuart Ross (did you know his own Proper Tales Press is only four years away from fifty? did you see the website we built when his press turned forty?), Karen Massey, Stephen Brockwell, Grant Wilkins and bpNichol chapbook award-winner Jason Christie! There were a couple of folk unable to attend due to Covid (mild, at least), which was frustrating, but it was great to see Margo LaPierre, Brian Pirie, Susan Atkinson, Manahil Bandukwala, Salem Paige, Allison Armstrong and Helen Robertson! Very nice, also, to see a whole stack of folk in the audience that I didn't actually know. I mean, that's good too, yes?

The first reader was Ottawa poet Mahaila Smith, launching their above/ground press debut (and third chapbook overall), Enter the Hyperreal (2024). There is a sharpness to Smith's work, and anyone who references the work of the late American poet Barbara Guest is very much applying good judgement. Check out Mahaila's recent essay on the chapbook, here.

Latinx poet Carlos A. Pittella came in from Montreal (and was flying somewhere else ridiculously early the following morning), and had such a marvellous, gestural energy to his presence, and to his work. I was first introduced to his work through a recommendation from above/ground press author Misha Solomon, who was introduced to me through a recommendation from above/ground press author Sarah Burgoyne, who was introduced to me through a recommendation from Stuart Ross. Thank you, all! Carlos was launching his first English-language chapbook, footnotes after Lorca (2024), a chapbook with a dark and layered undertone, composed and performed with an absolute joy of playful language. Check out Carlos' recent essay on the chapbook, here.

It is strange to think that Kitchener, Ontario poet and editor Chris Banks and I hadn't actually interacted in-person for twenty years or so, since around the publication of his first full-length collection. The poems of his above/ground press debut, Tiny Grass Is Dreaming (2024), displays such a thoughtful, meditative sharpness (and apparently he's been writing up a storm lately). Check out Chris' recent essay on the chapbook, here.

One of my long-time favourites, as you probably already know, is Gil McElroy, a poet currently living in North Bay, Ontario. I've been publishing his work since the mid-1990s, don't you know. He said that his new chapbook, his tenth above/ground press title, Small Consonants (2024), wasn't meant to be read aloud, so he read from some previous work, including poems referencing the Perseids.

There is such lovely, small detail in the poems of Pearl Pirie's latest above/ground press title, her sixth, Rushing Dusk (2024), a small chapbook featuring cover artwork by my middle daughter, Rose. Check out Pearl's essay on the chapbook, here. And you saw the festschrift we recently produced on her work as well, yes?

Did you hear that Ottawa poet (originally from Alberta) Shane Rhodes and his family are moving to Australia in a couple of weeks? It means that this was most likely his last Ottawa reading before they catch their flight. He read from his above/ground press debut, It's Here All the Beauty I Told You About (2024), a chapbook I am very pleased about, as I've been itching to publish his work since his full-length debut introduced me to his work, some two decades ago. His current work-in-progress (which includes the chapbook), explores Alberta/western mythology, imagery and collage, and the death of his mother,

Thank you to everyone who came out to help celebrate! And what might the next year bring? Thirty-one years, nearly fourteen hundred publications, hundreds of authors and three celebratory anthologies (including the third that appeared last fall through Invisible Publishing), among other schemes, blogs, events and ephemera. As you can see from the sidebar, I've a whole mound of forthcoming titles through the press, currently working on chapbook titles by authors including Vik Shirley, Alice Burdick, ryan fitzpatrick, Peter Jaeger, John Levy, alex benedict, Ryan Skrabalak, Scott Inniss and David Phillips, among others. I did offer last night that anyone who wished to subscribe to the press from this moment right now through to the end of 2025 could for the low price of $100 (for American addresses, $100 US), which I'm willing to offer here as well, an offer good until the end of this month (just send me an email: rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com). I mean, I'm producing some sixty to eighty chapbooks a year, that's a good deal, isn't it? Who knows what might come next?

new from above/ground press: It’s Here / All the Beauty / I Told You About, by Shane Rhodes

It’s Here
All the Beauty
I Told You About
Shane Rhodes
$6

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

Shane Rhodes is a poet and visual artist living in Ottawa, on unceded Algonquin, Anishinabek territory. He is the author of six books, including Dead White Men (winner of the 2018 Ottawa Book Award), and has performed work nationally and internationally. He can be found online at www.shanerhodes.ca

[Shane Rhodes will be launching It’s Here All the Beauty I Told You About on August 10 as part of the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading, alongside Gil McElroy, Carlos A. Pittella, Chris Banks, Pearl Pirie and Mahaila Smith; tickets available here]

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

the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading/launch/party : August 10 2024 : Red Bird Live,

: tickets available here :

The Factory Reading Series: Irwin, Rhodes + Landers, August 12, 2017

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:
The Factory Reading Series:

with readings by:

Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa)
Shane Rhodes (Ottawa)
+ Sue Landers (Brooklyn NY)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, August 12, 2017
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Shortlisted for the 2016 bpNichol Award and winner of the 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, Marilyn Irwin’s [pictured] work has been published by Apt. 9 Press, Arc Poetry Magazine, Matrix Magazine, Puddles of Sky, and The Steel Chisel, among others. north, her eighth chapbook, and third published by above/ground press, was released earlier this year. She runs shreeking violet press in Ottawa.

See her 2015 Jacket2 interview here: http://jacket2.org/commentary/short-interview-marilyn-irwin

Shane Rhodes is the author of six books of poetry, including his most recent Dead White Men (2017, Coach House Books). Other titles include Err, which was nominated for the City of Ottawa Book Award in 2012, X, which created poetry out of Canada’s post-Confederation treaties, and The Wireless Room, which won the Alberta Book Award. Shane’s poetry has also been featured in the anthologies Best Canadian Poetry in 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2014, Breathing Fire II, and was awarded the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry.

See his recent Touch the Donkey interview here: http://touchthedonkey.blogspot.ca/2016/09/ttd-supplement-61-seven-questions-for.html

Sue Landers is a poet from Brooklyn. She is author of Franklinstein, which tells the story of one Philadelphia neighborhood wrestling with the legacies of colonialism, racism, and capitalism. She is also the author of two books of poetry, 248 mgs., a panic picnic and Covers, as well as two chapbooks, 15: A Poetic Engagement with the Chicago Manual of Style and What I Was Tweeting While You Were on Facebook. She is currently writing about riding every New York City subway line from end to end.

See her recent Touch the Donkey interview here: http://touchthedonkey.blogspot.ca/2017/06/ttd-supplement-81-seven-questions-for.html

Amanda Earl : A Celebration of Canadian Visual / Concrete Poetry : Brick Books

Amanda Earl's expansive two-part post, A Celebration of Canadian Visual / Concrete Poetry, is now online [see part one here and part two here] as part of Brick Books' ongoing Celebration of Canadian Poetry. As part of her post, she features statements and work by an array of above/ground press authors (and not-yet-authors), including: Chris Turnbull, Jordan Abel, Gary Barwin, Derek Beaulieu, Michael e. Casteels, Judith Copithorne, Helen Hajnoczky, Donato Mancini, Billy Mavreas, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, gustave morin, michèle provost, a rawlings, Shane Rhodes, Eric Schmaltz [above: his “Desire — an extract from The Assembly Line Babel”] and Eric Zboya.

some author activity: Bolster, Abel, Dolman, Dennis, hastain, Hall + Wilkinson;

Stephanie Bolster is interviewed by Montreal poet and blogger Susan Gillis; the website CanLit Guides writes on "Visual Poetry and Indigenous-Settler Issues: Shane Rhodes and Jordan Abel"; Anita Dolman reads at The TREE Reading Series, Ottawa, on December 10, 2013 alongside Mike Caesar and Peter Richardson; and above/ground press authors Amy Dennis, j/j hastain, Phil Hall and Joshua Marie Wilkinson each have new work up in the 8th issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics.