new from above/ground press: Now When, A Poem, by Travis Sharp

Now When, A Poem
Travis Sharp
$6

when the reminder
when the junk mail piles
when the door’s a knockin
when it’s Monday
when the flowers breathe again
when the sound of trees in wind
when the flight gets cancelled
when the present can, in fact, be long
when the sun speaks out
when it snows so early
when there’s cops on every corner
when the metro is locked and guarded
when the escalator gets stuck mid-journey
when there’s another strike
when there’s banners out the windows
when I mean it this time
when the power goes out
when really
when you’re so late again
when the shining is the point
when feelings learn to fester
when the winter market opens
when wind so cold it burns the cheek
when your hair gets tussled
when the grinding labors you

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

cover image: Bradley W. Johnson, 4th of 7 Days, 7 Pieces (detail)

Travis Sharp is the author of the poetry books Monoculture (Unicorn Press, 2024) and Yes, I Am a Corpse Flower (Knife Fork Book, 2021), a poetry pamphlet, Behind the Poet Reading Their Poem Is a Sign Saying Applause (Knife Fork Book, 2022), and the chapbooks Sinister Queer Agenda (above/ground press, 2018) and One Plus One Is Two Ones (Recreational Resources, 2018). He’s a lecturer in the Department of English at Howard University and is an editor at Essay Press.

This is Sharp's second title with above/ground press, after Sinister Queer Agenda (2018).

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: 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.

some author activity: Sharp, mclennan, Rohrer + Bowering,

Travis Sharp is interviewed via poetry mini interviews, and has new work up at where is the river; rob mclennan is interviewed by the Ottawa Arts Council, as part of a spotlight; forthcoming author Jane Virginia Rohrer has a new poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month; and Rob Taylor conducts a two-part interview with Georges Bowering and Stanley (among other BC poets) for National Poetry Month.

Khashayar Mohammadi reviews Travis Sharp's Sinister Queer Agenda (2018) online at knife | fork | book

Khashayar Mohammadi was good enough to provide a first review of Travis Sharp's Sinister Queer Agenda (2018) over at the knife | fork | book site. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here. And of course, copies of Travis' chapbook are still very much available.

“The curve of the sentence.”
SINISTER QUEER AGENDA TRAVIS SHARP
ABOVE/GROUND, 2018.

I dream so much f body
I run out of small strips of paper

In a way I feel like I’ve known Travis Sharp for years. I ingest his new chapbook Sinister Queer Agenda and I sense a deep connection to his words, the same way I feel when I read Rimbaud or Mahmoud Darwish: a cycle of self-alienation, self-discovery and self-actualization rotating in an existential yin-yang. Delving deep into his consciousness, Sharp destabilizes the ego and offers me the fragments to digest. With each passing page he offers more and more of himself.

I poke the body to feel
Body feels

Sharp’s “I” is an experiment in consciousness, a continuous redefinition of the ego; a question about the very nature of “selfness” like Rimbaud’s “’je’ est un autre”. Sharp wallows in the mind-body divide, delves deep into the futility of restrictions imposed on the body and situates this unstable “Self” within the confines of sexual politics, begging the question: Is self created ex-nihilo? Or is its creation contingent on the body?

The ambivalence I feel is a body feeling
I is a body feeling itself
I is aroused
I touches itself
I is always fucking itself into existence

The elusive nature of Sharp’s “I” is confounded on the dilemma that psycho-social politics impose on the body.

I is a sexed interior decorator queering organs
Body refuses to move on
I ask politely repeatedly but receive no answer

That’s where the chapbook begins its brilliant second half, a playful musical written to be performed as uncomfortably close to the audience as possible.

That’s where Sharp’s initial Introspection ends. Sharp stands “Uncomfortably close” to the reader and begins his extrospection:

And the road is connected to tax dollars that I don’t have to pay because I’m poor
And my poor is connected to my parents’ poor
And my parents’ poor is connected to the trailer park
And the trailer park is connected to a memory of when I was a child watching TV

Situating the self within Capitalism neatly ties the chapbook together: being queer in a heteronormative capitalist environment is guaranteed to alienate the queer from their body. Being born into a world driven by profit, their bodies have become unresponsive vessels to the drive to produce and reproduce for the sake of capital. In a way queerness in itself is the biggest rebellion towards capitalism and its ironically sinister agenda that’ll oppose queerness at any cost.

I mean capitalism is a daddy pissing contest amirite
So says the twink tank newsletter:
You can’t take the femboi out of capitalism,
But you can take capitalism’s white cock out of the femboi

From Alienation, to discovery, to actualization and manifestation, Travis Sharp’s Sinister Queer Agenda is a truly masterful work of poetry and philosophy that should not be overlooked. Lines from this book shall echo in my mind for years to come.

Kirby at knife | fork | book offers Travis Sharp's Sinister Queer Agenda as a top 2018 pick!

As a response to the Globe & Mail leaving poetry off their "Top 100 Books" list for the third year in a row (a third year at least), Kirby at Toronto's legendary poetry-only bookstore, knife | fork | book. has written up his own list of "Top 2018 Picks!" He lists a wealth of materials, from full-length collections to chapbooks, and was good enough to include above/ground press' Sinister Queer Agenda (2018) by Travis Sharp! Huzzah! Thanks for this, Kirby! We totally agree.

Chapbook Launch Party! w/ Allison Cardon + Travis Sharp / Buffalo NY

Join Travis Sharp (Sinister Queer Agenda) and Allison Cardon (What was the sign you gave (a selection)) as they launch their above/ground press chapbook debuts!

Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 8 PM
The Rust Belt Bookstore
415 Grant St, Buffalo, New York 14213
See the Facebook event here

new from above/ground press: Sinister Queer Agenda, by Travis Sharp

Sinister Queer Agenda
Travis Sharp
$5

Part Five: Romance in late capitalism

I.

It was like a gay romance on Netflix
of which I had seen many
if not all and therefore
I had a strong sense
of what came next:
we made eggs for one another
with a gay zeal
we went down on one another
with sentimental music
in the background
we stared at one another’s
shoes we went to a friend’s
wedding it was really
stunning but full of
wealth everywhere
with nice shoes and nicer
haircuts in the straight
to Netflix film version
there is a token lesbian
and a token sassy black man
and a token unsexed or oversexed
genderqueer person with bad fashion sense
the occasional gay announcing he’s
a top by wearing
gym shorts in February
but in the documentary version of
what really happened there were
lots of happy white gays
reaching for the bouquet
the man I was with said
that will be us
referring to all of them grasping
referring to rabidity


to animus
to both definitions of animus
to some beautiful anathema

II.

We get home
referring to some shitty moldy apartment
we take off our clothes
referring to the clearance rack at Goodwill
we lay down in our bed
unsexed and sexless
the ritual of getting ready took
too long for both of us
and after working
our collective seven jobs
filling out applications
obsessively checking our
credit card statements
shuffling money from
savings to checking and
back again we give up
the notion of fucking
and just sleep for a while

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Travis Sharp is a teacher, writer, and book artist living in Buffalo. He co-edited Radio: 11.8.16 (Essay Press, 2017) with Aimee Harrison and Maria Anderson. He’s an editor and designer at Essay Press and a PhD student in the Poetics Program at SUNY Buffalo. Poems and essays have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, The Bombay Gin, The Operating System, LIT, Puerto del Sol, Big Lucks, Entropy, and in other things and places.

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

some author activity: Downs, Coulton, Sharp + Syersak,

Buck Downs has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; Valerie Coulton is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; forthcoming author Travis Sharp has a new essay in the "On Writing" series at the ottawa poetry newsletter; and Jake Syersak also has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day.

some author activity: Johnstone, Polyck-O'Neill, Smith, Rosenthal, Sharp + Brockwell,

Matthew Johnstone has some new work in the final issue of interrupture ; Julia Polyck-O'Neill is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Jessica Smith, Sarah Rosenthal and forthcoming author Travis Sharp (etcetera) all have work in the third issue of DREAM POP JOURNAL; and Stephen Brockwell has a new poem up at NewPoetry.