some author activity: hanna, Thomas, Trivedi, Maguire, Barton, Aigen, Spinosa + Weaver,

natalie hanna has a new poem on the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, as do Hugh Thomas, Amish Trivedi and Shannon Maguire; John Barton is interviewed for the Chaudiere Books blog in the "Six Questions" series; Razielle Aigen is interviewed at Train : a poetry journal; and Dani Spinosa writes on Andy Weaver for Open Book.

2016 Battle of the Bards: Best, Maguire, Pinder and Weaver

above/ground press authors Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Shannon Maguire, Sarah Pinder and Andy Weaver participate in the 2016 Battle of the Bards alongside Lara Bozabalian, Chris Chambers, Warren Clements, Michael Fraser, Marty Gervais, Susan Glickman, Maureen Hynes, James Lindsay, Kate Marshall Flaherty, Ruth Roach Pierson, Vanessa Shields, Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes, Blair Trewartha, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Katerina Vaughan Fretwell and Bänoo Zan!

Poetry NOW: 8th annual Battle of the Bards

Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - 7:30 PM
Special Event: IFOA Weekly
Brigantine Room
235 Queens Quay West
Toronto M5J 2G8
Cost: $10/FREE supporters, students & youth 25 and under
http://ifoa.org/events/poetry-now-8th-annual-battle-of-the-bards

1 stage. 20 poets. 1 winner.

Our popular poetry competition returns in 2016 to feature readings by 20 of Canada’s upcoming and established poets. Judges Geoffrey E. Taylor (IFOA’s Director), Jen Tindall (IFOA’s Artistic Associate) and Andy McGuire (winner of 2015 IFOA Poetry Games) will select one winner, who will receive an automatic invitation to read at the 37th edition of the International Festival of Authors AND an ad for their book in NOW Magazine!

The event will be hosted by NOW’s Susan G. Cole.

Poetry NOW is presented in partnership with NOW Magazine.

some author activity: Maguire, beaulieu, Schmaltz + Armantrout,

Shannon Maguire is interviewed over at the BookThug website; derek beaulieu has new work up at NewPoetry; Eric Schmaltz writes on kaie kellough as part of Brick Books' Celebration of Canadian Poetry; and Matthew Gagnon writes on Rae Armantrout over at Jacket2.

some author activity: beaulieu, McCann, Maguire + Armantrout,

derek beaulieu offers his list of "Most Engaging Books of 2015"; Marcus McCann has a new poem up at The Steel Chisel; Shannon Maguire is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and "A Quick Interview With Rae Armantrout" by Corey Zeller now lives online at The Ampersand Review.

some author activity: Maguire, Abel, Pirie, Kronovet + mclennan,

Shannon Maguire has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series on the dusie blog; Jordan Abel is included on CBC Books' "Writers to Watch 2015" list; Pearl Pirie has a new poem posted at one sentence poems; Jennifer Kronovet has a new essay in the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; and rob mclennan has a new poem up at Empty Mirror.

some author activity: McCann, mclennan, Trivedi, Harris, Maguire + Armantrout,

Marcus McCann has two new poems, as well as a short write-up by rob mclennan, now up at Jacket2; Amish Trivedi has some new poems in Alice Blue Review; Sharon Harris posts a short write-up of her most recent above/ground press title; Shannon Maguire has three new poems, as well as a short write-up by rob mclennan, now up at Jacket2; and Rae Armantrout has a new poem up at Poetry Daily.

Best American Experimental Writing 2014 : Armantrout, Greenstreet, Kronovet, Maguire, Reed + Robinson,

The first edition of the annual Best American Experimental Writing, guest edited by Cole Swensen, is now available from Omnidawn Publishing! It includes work by seventy-nine different contributors, including above/ground press authors Rae Armantrout, Kate Greenstreet, Jennifer Kronovet, Shannon Maguire, Marthe Reed and Elizabeth Robinson. Congrats to all!

above/ground press participates in The Capilano Review's epic kickstarter!

above/ground press has donated a mound of chapbooks for The Capilano Review's epic fundraiser! For a donation for $50 or more, you can pick up a set of fourteen above/ground press chapbooks. Only three sets available!

Each set includes: Gregory Betts, Who Let the Mice in Brion Gysin (2014), rob mclennan, How the alphabet was made (2014), Rae Armantrout, Rituals (2013), Fenn Stewart, An OK Organ Man (2012), Robert Manery, Richter-Rauzer Variations (2012), Mark Cochrane, Cat. (2012), Shannon Maguire, Vowel Wolves & Other Knots (2011), Ken Norris, GREEN WIND (2010), Natalie Simpson, The writing that should enter into conversation (2005), ryan fitzpatrick, Adolesce (2005), George Bowering (as "Ellen Field"), A, You're Adorable (2004), Meredith Quartermain, "Highway 99" (STANZAS #35) (2003), Donato Mancini, @phabet (2003), bpNichol, KON 66 & 67 (for jiri valoch (2002).

some author activity: Bolster, Maguire, eckhoff, Higdon, Hancock + Smith,

Stephanie Bolster has a new poem up at Hazlitt; Shannon Maguire participates in The Great Canadian Writers Craft Interview over at Open Book: Toronto; kevin mcpherson eckhoff has a new piece, "Their Death #1," over at their biography; Sarah Heady gives some love to Hailey Higdon; Brecken Hancock's second writer-in-residence piece is up at Open Book: Toronto; and Jessica Smith posted her '2013 year in review' back in December (even if we didn't notice such until now).

some author activity: mclennan, Ladouceur, McElroy, Maguire, Hancock + Massey,

rob mclennan has a new poem over at The Nervous Breakdown, and is the first to respond to Amish Trivedi's "Where Do You Write, My Lovely"?; writer Ben Ladouceur is interviewed about the OTHER MEN web series; Gil McElroy is interviewed over at the Touch the Donkey blog; Shannon Maguire is interviewed over at The Great Canadian Writer's Craft; Brecken Hancock answers the "12 or 20 questions" questionnaire; and Karen Massey has a new poem in a special Bloomsday issue of The Found Poetry Review.

above/ground press at Congress 2014: Maguire, Dueck, Schmaltz, Weaver + Betts,

above/ground press authors are apparently all over this year's Congress at Brock University, including a reading at Niagara Artists Centre in downtown St. Catharines, Ontario, 354 St. Paul Street on Sunday, May 25, 2014 from 8-10pm. Lovingly hosted by Gregory Betts (Brock) and Tanis MacDonald (Wilfrid Laurier), the Soirée des Refusés off-site Congress local cultural event features an array of poets from across the country, featuring above/ground press authors and non-authors alike, including nathan dueck, Phoebe Wang, Charmaine Cadeau, Shannon Maguire, Andy Weaver, Peter Midgley, Eric Schmaltz, James O'Sullivan, and more! Snacks, books and beer, I'm told. All welcome.

above/ground press author Fenn Stewart's An OK Organ Man (2012) on the bpNichol 2013 chapbook award shortlist!

Congratulations to Toronto poet Fenn Stewart, whose 2012 chapbook An OK Organ Man (copies are still available) is on the 2013 bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist! This is above/ground press' second appearance on the shortlist, after two titles appeared on last year's list. Nice, also, to also see above/ground press authors Gil McElroy and Shannon Maguire on the list for other titles, and even one of our authors as a judge! (the press appears to be everywhere these days) Congratulations to the entire shortlist!

Here's the press release that Toronto's Meet the Presses Collective sent out today:

Congratulations: Meet The Presses Collective and the bpNichol Chapbook Award Committee are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2013 bpNichol Chapbook Award.

thirteen poems for releasing love by joanne thorwaldson (leaf press)
An OK Organ Man by Fenn Stewart (above/ground)
Ordinary Time: The Merton Lake Propers by Gil McElroy (baseline press)
fruit machine by Shannon Maguire (Ferno House)
21st century monsters by ryan fitzpatrick (Red Nettle Press)
naturally speaking by Sandra Alland (espresso [paperplates press])

The winner will be announced at 2PM on Saturday 16 November 2013 at the Indie Literary Market, Tranzac Club, Toronto. A cheque for $2,000 goes to the winning poet and $500 to the winning publisher. Donors for the prizes include Anonymous ($2,000 prize), Jim Smith and Brian Dedora ($500 prize).

Judges this year are Sandra Ridley (Ottawa) & kevin mcpherson eckhoff (Armstrong, BC), who received 90 chapbooks from which they made this year's shortlist selection.

                                        ❧ ❧
 
In the spirit of the original Phoenix Chapbook Award, which was adjudicated for its first two years by Frank Davey and bpNichol, and continued as the bpNichol Chapbook Award for 23 years by Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry published in chapbook form. With the demise of Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the Meet the Presses collective was pleased to assume management of the award. Meet the Presses is a Toronto-based collective devoted to promoting micro, small and independent literary presses. This collective has come together in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses event begun in Toronto in the mid-1980s by Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross. Members of Meet the Presses have organized a variety of curated public events, and all the events focus on independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Meet the Presses – an unfunded and non-profit collective – consists of members Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Beth Follett, Hazel Millar, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross.

some author activity: beaulieu, McNair, Paige, Maguire, Bolster, Armantrout, Anstee + the above/ground press fetish object,

Pearl Pirie discusses derek beaulieu's work over at CWILA: Canadian Women in the Literary Arts; Christine McNair has a blog post up at the IFOA website, anticipating her participation in this year's festival; the dvd of Abby Paige's solo show, Piecework: When We Were French, is finally available; Shannon Maguire was interviewed over at The Toronto Quarterly; Stephanie Bolster has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog; Rae Armantrout has a new poem up at the Boston Review; and Cameron Anstee discusses the recent "above/ground press fetish object" (among other recent acquisitions) that Christine McNair and I put together for the above/ground press twentieth anniversary celebration.

some author activity: Armantrout, mclennan, eckhoff, Prevost + Maguire,

"A Second Look: The Poetry of Rae Armantrout," in SF State magazine; rob mclennan has the third essay in the "On Writing" series at the ottawa poetry newsletter; kevin mcpherson eckhoff and last year's Fish Quill Poetry Boat Tour; Roland Prevost has a new poem up as part of the dusie "Tuesday Poem" series; and Eric Schmaltz writes on Shannon Maguire over at Lemonhound.

some author activity: Maguire, Earl, Graham, Abel, mclennan + McFadden,

Shannon Maguire answers some questions over at Open Book: Toronto; Amanda Earl discusses the narrative in poetry; Lea Graham discusses place in poetry over at the Atticus Review, introducing readers to the work of poets Michael Anania and Joseph Harrington; Jordan Abel has started blogging for The Capilano Review; rob mclennan has a new poem up at The Wonder Book, as selected by guest-editor Andrew Burke; and Griffin-nominee David W. McFadden graces the dusie Tuesday poem series with "three dubious sonnets."

Some author activity: McCann, Robertson, beaulieu, Earl, Best + Maguire,

Marcus McCann has a new poem posted in the dusie "Tuesday Poem" series; Lisa Robertson has a new poem up at Jerome Rothenberg's Poems and Poetics blog; derek beaulieu had one of the last pieces in Amanda Earl's 2013 NationalPoetryMonth.ca; Amanda Earl discusses her work, including some of her above/ground press publications, over at the Oh Get A Grip! blog; Ashley-Elizabeth Best, author of a recent above/ground press "poem" broadside, was recently featured with a new poem on The Toronto Quarterly; and Shannon Maguire has a poem up on the BookThug blog as part of poetry month.

some author activity: beaulieu, Armantrout, McNair + Maguire,

derek beaulieu has three new visual poems up at Canadian Poetries; Rae Armantrout has a new poem from the new issue of Poetry magazine up at the Poetry Foundation blog;  Christine McNair has a work included in the Contemporary Book Arts in Eastern Ontario exhibit at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario until the end of May, 2013, and she will be participating with Shannon Maguire in Harbourfront's Battle of the Bards in Toronto on April 3, 2013; and until the end of March, we have a banner ad over at The Review Review (produced with our eternal gratitude by Pearl Pirie); might it gain us a few more subscribers? Some more individual orders? Who knows...

Ryan Pratt reviews Allison Grayhurst and Shannon Maguire

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review recent above/ground press titles by Allison Grayhurst and Shannon Maguire over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

See the original post here:

Recent Reads: Allison Grayhurst and Shannon Maguire

The River Is Blind by Allison Grayhurst
A Web Of Holes by Shannon Maguire

Both titles published by above/ground press, December 2012.

    “He came. He is what everyone needs
    But the pavement is thick
    the ground beneath is rich
    saturated with worms,
    moving
    thick
    with worm motion
    moving
    at worm speed.”

This stanza, snipped from the tail-end of “In the Thighs”, illustrates an existential curiosity that courses through Allison Grayhurst’s latest collection. We’ll get to the “He” part in a minute. But first, it’s Grayhurst’s physical constraints that comfort us: a box sitting at the top of the stairs, housecats in states of wakefulness and sleep, the “snails and moss” that preoccupy her. Indeed, The River Is Blind situates itself firmly in the familial but imbues those relationships and domestic touchstones with a disembodied calm. Ambition and disenchantment linger along the fences of Grayhurst’s property but she remains candidly in the present:  embracing “the comfort of sweaters and knitted socks” for “First Snow of Winter”, “the child sitting and staring and waiting for the coin” in “Wallpaper Stars”.

In lesser hands, muses such as these might’ve resulted in verses of weak-kneed contentedness. But Grayhurst’s voice remains one of detachment, webbing daily pleasures into greater meditations on love and God – the “He” that churns The River Is Blind’s family soil. Through spiritual lens, poems like “Everything Happens” and “Flies” counteract steadfast faith with insights on the material world, a separate world; a place where people grind flowers for honey. From “Flies”:

    “What faith was plucked with the flowers
    as all their little tongues reached out to pocket
    the short-term scent?”

Naturally it’s a tad intimidating when the first word of a first poem has you running for the nearest dictionary. But “epoché”, meaning to suspend our understanding of the external world in order to relate to phenomena on a purely conscious level, proves more an ideological gateway for Shannon Maguire than a term reserved for Greek philosophy. In A Web Of Holes, epoché operates as a palette-cleanser, an italicized provocation plopped down as if to ready us for enlightenment, however fleeting.

The delight of Maguire’s long verse doesn’t lie at the heart of some mystic truth but in the trail of crumbs by which we readers become seekers. Ringing true to my newfound understanding of epoché, her language prefers a disorienting narrative, one that repeatedly suspends our ability to find grounded context amid visceral and scholarly hurdles.

    “external acoustic crunch
    undulating forms wet with
    reflex
    yard line dirt around her waist
    dodecahedron kiss
    in with clock and guests
    climbing desire
    elongated, erect seconds”

Besides illustrating her palette for abstract sensuality and Greek imagery, this excerpt identifies A Web Of Holes as acrostic; E, U, R, Y, D, I, C, and E trafficking the bulk of Maguire’s verses in honour of Eurydice, wife of Orpheus. This opens up some juicy parallels between ancient lore and Maguire’s sharp insights on the ownership of femininity. A temperamental breakdown in syntax midway through introduces a conflict in reinterpreting Eurydice’s tale; a commentary on the myth-making roots of Greek literature, perhaps.

You may wish to keep that dictionary handy but A Web Of Holes wouldn’t be nearly as exciting without its obfuscations which, with a bit of a learning curve, unveil ephemeral gems of raw, almost carnal, beauty. To close, here’s an example of Maguire’s hard-fought harmony:

    “Evening’s gaze, the limit of voice
    Unison of suspension
    Ritenuto.
    You watch them
    Dying
    It is a bright and chilly morning
    Collapse, there are still not
    Enough independent girls

    Eglinton at five am, floating
    Ukiyoe
    Rebuilt from a country road
    You watch them dreaming
    Date the world from those Cordova Street cherry blossoms
    Ink brushes against her forehead
    Cassanation of gossiping motors
    Eviction notice floating, floating”

some author activity: hastain, Poe, Earl, Prevost + Maguire,

On Amanda Earl's Angelhousepress, above/ground press author j/j hastain and Lark Fox discuss ceremony in a very lyrical and poetic interview, and hastain also has work in the fifth issue of Earl's experiment-o; everyone, it seems, is talking about Deborah Poe; a visual poem by Amanda Earl is featured in a review at the Paris Review Daily blog; and don't forget about the Prevost/Maguire launch this coming Saturday!

new from above/ground press: A Web Of Holes by Shannon Maguire

A Web Of Holes

Shannon Maguire

$4

epoché

urns the animal

resists all mobilities

yawns new hostage wars

dwelling place thirsts

incisors on wet tissues

come above, land where she is

eating anyway

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

December 2012

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

This is Maguire’s second above/ground press title, after the collection Vowel Wolves & Other Knots (2011).

Cover image: Kathleen L. Gonneville-Maguire

Shannon Maguire is the author of the chapbooks Vowel Wolves & Other Knots (above/ground 2011) and Fruit Machine (Ferno House 2012). She has been a finalist for the Manitoba Magazine Awards (2012) and the Robert Kroetsh Award for Innovative Poetry (2011). Her first full length collection of poetry, Fur(l) Parachute is forthcoming from BookThug in 2013.

[Shannon Maguire launches A Web of Holes in Ottawa alongside Roland Prevost and Craig Calhoun on Saturday, December 15 as part of The Factory Reading Series]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com