new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #36; VERSeFest special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #36
2026 VERSeFest Special
lovingly hand-crafted, folded, stapled, edited and carried around in bags of envelopes by rob mclennan,
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2026 participants, including Gwen Aube, Frances Boyle, Melissa Powless Day, Michelle Desbarats, Amanda Earl, Lucia Farinon, Jen Jakob, Sneha Subramanian Kanta, Margo LaPierre, T Liem, D.A. Lockhart, Karen Massey, Emma McKenna, rob mclennan, Pearl Pirie, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Monty Reid, Declan Ryan, Robyn Sarah, Misha Solomon, Grant Wilkins, Lydia Unsworth + Jumoke Verissimo;

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the sixteenth annual VERSeFest, March 24-30, 2026] [see last year's issue here]

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: Wee Walk, by Jennifer Baker

Wee Walk
Jennifer Baker
$6

In June of 2025 two poets
—and relatively inexperienced hikers—

decide on a whim 
to walk Scotland’s West Highland Way 
for their honeymoon 

154km from Glasgow to Fort William.
This is just the beginning of how it went.

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

[Jennifer Baker launches Wee Walk as part of a Common House event alongside Sneha Subramanian Kanta and Vera Hadzic on Friday, March 27, 2026 as part of VERSeFest 2026]

Jennifer Baker is a Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa, and the author of three chapbooks: Abject Lessons (above/ground press, 2014), Groundling (Trainwreck Press, 2021 & above/ground press, 2023), and Memento Mishka (with David Currie, Apt. 9 Press, 2023). She is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to experimental poetics, and her material poetics work will appear in the upcoming Delisted Project (Third Thing Press, 2026). She is the former Poetry Editor of Arc Poetry Magazine from 2023-2025, including a special Winter 2025 guest issue on The New Material Ecopoetics.

This is Baker's third chapbook with above/ground press.

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

The Factory Reading Series @ VERSeFest: Nada Gordon + Lydia Unsworth, March 29, 2026!

The Factory Reading Series
as part of the sixteenth annual VERSeFest poetry festival presents: 
The Factory Reading Series Lecture Series; two talks/readings by:

Nada Gordon (Brooklyn NY)
+
Lydia Unsworth (Manchester UK)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, March 29, 2026
3-4pm, Arts Court Black Box Studio
A FREE EVENT / check link for info on tickets/passes: https://verseottawa.ca/en/versefest
as well as for the full schedule of readers and events!
March 24-30, 2026

Nada Gordon: [see a new interview here] I live in Brooklyn and work too hard and too much, teaching courses like “Tyranny and the Absurd” and “The Glamour of Language.” Actually, they are just comp, but isn’t that what all art is, actually? I have two Siberian cats. I make things besides poems: garments, baubles, toys. My Etsy shop is https://www.etsy.com/shop/ScentedRushes. I’ve published nine books and lots of chapbooks besides. My selected, The Sound Princess: Selected Poems 1985-2015 found its way into the world last year by way of SubPress. “The Sound Princess” is a literal translation from the Japanese of “Otohime,” the button you push in a toilet stall to make the sound of rushing water so that others don’t hear you pee. It does sound grand, doesn’t it? I was in the hysterico-transgressive poetry movement called Flarf in the 2000s. Before that, I lived in Japan for over a decade. Before Japan, I wrote a thesis on Bernadette Mayer’s work. I studied with Language Poets in Bay Area in the 80s. I was a hardcore punk after I was a flower child. As an actual child I sometimes wrote poems. I was born in Oakland in 1964.

Lydia Unsworth [see a new interview here] is a poet from Manchester, UK. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. She is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Place Writing in Manchester, looking at kinship with disappearing post-industrial architecture. She has 6 poetry collections and 4 above / ground chapbooks, and has two new poetry collections coming out in 2026, Stay Awhile (April, Knives Forks and Spoons Press) and This Now Extends to My Daughter (May, Blue Diode Press).

some author activity: Coulton, Aube, Kaplan, mclennan, Hausner + Unsworth,

Valerie Coulton has a new poem at the arts fuse; Gwen Aube is announced as one of the 2026 Writers-in-Residence at the Al Purdy A-Frame; both Genevieve Kaplan and rob mclennan have new work up at Posit; Beatriz Hausner has a poem in Paul Vermeersch's "In the Third Sleep" series; and Lydia Unsworth is interviewed by rob mclennan to help promote her upcoming participation in VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival.

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #35 : 2025 VERSeFest Special

The Peter F Yacht Club #35
2025 VERSeFest Special
lovingly hand-crafted, folded, stapled, edited and carried around in bags of envelopes by rob mclennan,
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2025 participants, including Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, Susan J. Atkinson, Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, Michelle Desbarats, Em Dial, AJ Dolman, Amanda Earl, Cara Goodwin, Phil Hall, Jessica Hiemstra, Rebecca Kempe, Laurie Koensgen, Margo LaPierre, Karen Massey, rob mclennan, Pamela Mosher, Salem Paige, Terese Mason Pierre, Pearl Pirie, Monty Reid, stephanie roberts + Grant Wilkins;

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the fifteenth annual VERSeFest, March 25-29, 2025]
[see the prior issue here; see last year's VERSeFest issue here]

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

VERSeFest 2025 : Andy Weaver, Phil Hall + Eileen Myles

above/ground press authors Andy Weaver, Phil Hall and Eileen Myles read in Ottawa this week as part of VERSeFest 2025! Tickets are still available! And Myles even reads at Carleton on Friday at noon at a free event! Might we see you there?

new from above/ground press: Teenage Whales, by Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles
Teenage Whales
$5

the birds
push
the diamonds
the reddish
weave
of my knee
Honey’s heh heh
that shakes
her belly &
her back
it catches
in the back
of her
throat
ma-ma
goes the child
we want
to go
what the fuck
are you
doing here
with your
children &
a black
duck dips
his head
behind
a wave
is gone
[...]

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as part of the author’s participation in VERSeFest
March 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover illustration by the author

Eileen Myles is a poet, novelist and art journalist. Their latest books are a “Working Life” and Pathetic Literature. They are currently at it on a very long novel, out in ‘27, maybe. They live in NYC & Marfa TX.

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: The Peter F Yacht Club #33 : 2024 VERSeFest Special,

The Peter F Yacht Club #33
2024 VERSeFest Special
lovingly hand-crafted, folded, stapled, edited and carried around in bags of envelopes by rob mclennan,
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2024 participants, including Jennifer Baker, Manahil Bandukwala, Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, nina jane drystek, Klara du Plessis, Amanda Earl, Anita Lahey, IAN MARTIN, rob mclennan, James Moran, Pearl Pirie, Jaclyn Piudik, Monty Reid, Sandra Ridley, Marjorie Silverman, Madeleine Stratford, D.S. Stymeist, Derek Webster and Grant Wilkins,

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the fourteenth annual VERSeFest, March 21-24, 2023]

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

VERSeFest 2024: Reid, drystek, Earl, Dolman, Turnbull, Christie + Mohammadi,

above/ground press authors Monty Reid, nina jane drystek, Amanda Earl, AJ Dolman, Chris Turnbull, Jason Christie and Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, among plenty of others, read next week in Ottawa as part of VERSeFest 2024 (March 21-24)! Might we see you there? And in case you weren't aware, there have been an array of interviews with a number of authors reading at this year's festival posted over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, including an interview with AJ Dolman by Amanda Earl and Sandra Ridley by Margo LaPierre, and interviews with Khashayar Mohammadi and Jason Christie by myself (interviews with Chris Turnbull, Laila Malik + Klara du Plessis to post over the next few days!).

The Factory Reading Series @ VERSeFest: Amy Dennis + Natalie Eilbert, March 25, 2023!

The Factory Reading Series
as part of the thirteenth annual VERSeFest poetry festival presents: 

The Factory Reading Series Lecture Series; two talks/readings by:

Amy Dennis (Northern ON)
+
Natalie Eilbert (Green Bay WI)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, March 25, 2023
1-2pm at Knox Presbyterian Church, 120 Lisgar St. Ottawa (simultaneously streamed online free!
$15 tickets / check link for info on tickets/passes: https://www.verseottawa.ca/en/versefest
as well as for the full schedule of readers and events!
March 18-26, 2023

In addition to publications in England and France, Amy Dennis' poetry has appeared in more than twenty Canadian literary publications, including CV2, Event, Queen's Quarterly, and Prairie Fire. Her poetry has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards and a Random House Creative Writing Award. She placed second in the UK’s National Bedford Open Poetry Competition. While completing her Ph.D in literature, she published THE COMPLEMENT AND ANTAGONIST OF BLACK (OR, THE DEFINITION OF ALL VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS) with above/ground press. In 2022, Mansfield Press published The Sleep Orchard, Dennis' collection of ekphrastic poems in response to the life and art of Arshile Gorky. Currently, she works as a learning facilitator and professor.
https://www.verseottawa.ca/en/performer/amydennis

Natalie Eilbert [pictured] is the author of three poetry collections, Overland (Copper Canyon Press, forthcoming 5/16/2023), Indictus (Noemi Press 2018), Swan Feast (Bloof Books 2015). A recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts in poetry, a former Jay C. and Ruth Halls Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, and winner of the George Bogin Memorial Award from Poetry Society of America, Eilbert lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she is a statewide mental health reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
https://www.verseottawa.ca/en/performer/neilbert

both performers also have new work in the new issue of The Peter F Yacht Club, produced specifically for this year’s festival!

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #32 : 2023 VERSeFest Special,

The Peter F Yacht Club #32
2023 VERSeFest Special
lovingly hand-crafted, folded, stapled, edited and carried around in bags of envelopes by rob mclennan,
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2023 participants, including Dessa Bayrock, Frances Boyle, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Molly Cross-Blanchard, Amy Dennis, AJ Dolman, nina jane drystek, Amanda Earl, Natalie Eilbert, Laurie Anne Fuhr, Natalie Lim, rob mclennan, Justin Million, Pearl Pirie, Devon Rae, D.S. Stymeist + Grant Wilkins,

See links to: my report on our most recent reading/regatta / The Peter F Yacht Club #31 : "The Factory Reading Series 30th anniversary" issue / The Peter F Yacht Club #30 : the virtual issue ;

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the thirteenth annual VERSeFest, March 18-26, 2023]

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

some author activity: Cooley, Tierney, o'brien, Carpenter + Dennis,

Dennis Cooley has a poem in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Orchid Tierney has some new poems in the latest issue of Marsh Hawk Press; forthcoming author katie o'brien has a poem in the "poetry pause" series as well; J.R. Carpenter displays her Edmonton surroundings as part of the virtual VERSeFest 2020; and Michael Dennis receives the Meet the Presses' Special Recognition Award for Commitment and Devotion to Small Press.

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #28; VERSeFest (postponement) special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #28
VERSeFest 2020 (10th anniversary!) special
[ c a n c e l l a t i o n / p o s t p o n e m e n t  i s s u e ]
edited by rob mclennan
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and scheduled VERSeFest 2020 participants (for our newly-postponed festival), including Susan Atkinson, Oana Avasilichioaei, Manahil Bandukwala, Frances Boyle, Simon Brown, J.R. Carpenter, Conyer Clayton, Amanda Earl, Johannes Göransson, natalie hanna, Kaie Kellough, D.A. Lockhart, Canisia Lubrin, rob mclennan, Justin Million, Maude Pilon, Pearl Pirie, Monty Reid and K.B. Thors.

See link to last year's issue here

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

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

new from above/ground press: A General History of the Air, by J.R. Carpenter

A General History of the Air
J. R. Carpenter
$5

what we understand by the air

              that thin, fluid, diaphanous body

       in which we breathe

       wherein we move

the constant and permanent ingredients of the air

       that numberless multitude of vapours

                                                           of exceedingly minute parts

       innumerable particles         of what we call light

       elastic particles like springs of watches

                                              slender wires

                                              curled hairs of wool

                                              thin shavings of wood

the destruction, generation, and absorption of the air

       necessary to the well-being

                                 the very being

                                                 being a body

       not withstanding the difficulties

      

       I desire to be understood in a familiar sense

of the moisture and dryness of the air

       a body is dry

       a quality near of kin

       a privation

       may occasion

       a change of texture

 

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
for the author’s appearance in Ottawa
at the 10th annual VERSeFest, March 24-29, 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
 
J. R. Carpenter is a Canadian-born UK-based artist, writer, and practice-led researcher working across performance, print, and digital media. She is a fellow of the Moore Institute at NUI Galway and the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library. Her pioneering works of digital literature have been presented in museums, galleries, and festivals around the world. Her digital poem The Gathering Cloud won the New Media Writing Prize 2016. Her poetry collection An Ocean of Static (Penned in the Margins) was highly commended by the Forward Prizes 2018. Her next collection, This is a Picture of Wind, is forthcoming from Longbarrow Press in April 2020. http://luckysoap.com

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

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #27; VERSeFest special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #27
VERSeFest 2019 special
edited by rob mclennan
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2019 participants, including Manahil Bandukwala, Frances Boyle, Klara du Plessis, Amanda Earl, Avonlea Fotheringham, Lea Graham, natalie hanna, Richard Harrison, Harold Hoefle, Bob Hogg, Gil McElroy, rob mclennan, David O’Meara, Roland Prevost, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Renée Sarojini Saklikar

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the eighth annual VERSeFest, March 26-31, 2019]

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

new from above/ground press: from The Book of Bramah, by Renée Sarojini Saklikar

from The Book of Bramah
Renée Sarojini Saklikar
$5

Bramah’s Grandmother & Other Tales

Finder of the lost: keys, rings, lockets, chains
builder of the last Revival Network:
She brought warmth to cold friendships, crescent moon
winter morning that star shone―
healer of the broken: she mended clocks
devices rarely seen, moving parts oiled
no one to say the word soul or look up—
Bare trees, aquamarine sky, dark towers
pressed, her messages retrieved, factory bound
delivery routes disrupted by migrants
Geneva to Tokyo, great councils met
oil prices, the flow of capital, trade—
never lose your sight, she would say, half blind
Years later, in rags, her fingers, still kind.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Renée Sarojini Saklikar recently completed her term as the first Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey, British Columbia. Her latest book is a B.C. bestseller: Listening to the Bees (Nightwood Editions, 2018). Renée’s first book, children of air india, (Nightwood Editions, 2013) won the 2014 Canadian Authors Association Award for poetry. Renée co-edited The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them (Anvil Press/SFU Public Square, 2015,) a City of Vancouver book award finalist. Renée’s chapbook, After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees, (above/ground press, 2016), reprinted earlier this month, was a finalist for the 2017 bpNichol award. Her poetry has been made into musical and visual installations, including the opera, air india [redacted].  Renée was called to the BC Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor, served as a director for youth employment programs in the BC public service, and now teaches law and ethics for Simon Fraser University in addition to teaching creative writing at both SFU and Vancouver Community College. She curates the popular poetry reading series, Lunch Poems at SFU and serves on the boards of Event magazine and The Capilano Review and is a director for the board of the Surrey International Writers Conference. Renée belongs to the League of Canadian Poets and The Writer’s Union of Canada (TWUC) and is active on the TWUC Equity Committee. She is currently working on an epic-length sci-fi poem, THOT-J-BAP, that appears in journals, anthologies and chapbooks.

[produced, in part, for the sake of the author’s appearance at Ottawa’s VERSeFest Poetry Festival, March 2019]

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