some author activity: Sandhu, Sawyer, Vitkauskas, Weaver, Marlatt, Pirie, Logan + Shirley,

Mandy Sandhu has some poems up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as do Larry Sawyer and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas; Andy Weaver has a new poem up as part of National Poetry Month on the Chaudiere Books blog, as does forthcoming author Daphne Marlatt, and even Pearl Pirie; Nate Logan has new work up at Some Words; and Vik Shirley has new work up at And Other Poems.

some author activity: Banks, Shirley, Unrau, Betts, Barwin + Carpenter,

Chris Banks offers his "best Canadian poetry books of 2025" list, via The Woodlot; Vik Shirley has a new poem up at Burning House Press; Melanie Dennis Unrau is included in the Canadian Poets Series via Peripety and/or Tronies; Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts and Lillian Allen are interviewed on their Muttertongue collaborative projects by Hollay Ghadery for the New Books Network podcast; and J.R. Carpenter has two poems online at The Manchester Review.

some author activity: mclennan, Niespodziany, Jenks, Shirley, Williams, Logan, Kemp-Gee + Young,

rob mclennan has a poem up at Pamenar Press online; the full event of Benjamin Niespodziany's Surreal-Absurd Reading Marathon, featuring a handful of above/ground press authors including Tom Jenks, Vik Shirley, Evan Williams and Nate Logan, is now up on YouTube! ; Meghan Kemp-Gee has a new poem up at Eunoia Review; and Geoffrey Young had a poem a while back on the Best American Poetry blog.

some author activity: Chang-Richardson, Hausner, Niespodziany, Shirley, Barwin + Reid,

Ellen Chang-Richardson is featured in the "Canadian Poets Series" via Peripety and/or Tronies; Beatriz Hausner is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Benjamin Niespodziany hosted an online reading for Evan Nicholls that included readings by above/ground press authors Vik Shirley and Gary Barwin, as well as readings by Mark Leidner and Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, the entirety of which is now available via YouTube; and did you see the new interview with Monty Reid via the above/ground press substack?

some author activity: Sikkema, Robertson, Kolewe, Crosby, Shirley, Witek + mclennan,

Michael Sikkema has new work up at cul-de-sac of blood; did you know that Lisa Robertson has an occasional newsletter you can sign up for, as does R. Kolewe?; Gregory Crosby and Vik Shirley each have work up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as does forthcoming author Terri Witek; Chris Banks interviews rob mclennan for The Woodlot; and don't forget that above/ground press has that new substack you can sign up for, with extra-special other things to appear there.

new from above/ground press: CASSETTE POEMS, by Vik Shirley

CASSETTE POEMS
factory practice-room cassette-recording responses
Vik Shirley
$5

factory 16: industrial estate

girl in factory 16
never liked that change
or that progression.
so-and-so’s an edgy
[one question]
[one white-noise standard]
oh but there was plenty
to be inhaled and automated
bobby gee as breakdown
bobby gee as high-pitched jangle
revenge ballad for the dead                                                    
for the try-to-escape
the whether-we-would
the now this is pretty
the now this is black-ruin persistence
sprinkled on top
or crumbled rather
kill bill slash kill dad etc
oh no the melodica
can’t get a signal
oh no the riff
still won’t speak to me
after all this
me?
i’m a straight split
and trebly like an escape-
pod fantasy
slash haunting

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

Vik Shirley is a poet, writer, editor, educator and critic from Bristol, now living in Edinburgh, UK. Her books include Corpses (Sublunary Editions), Notes from the Underworld (Sublunary Editions), Disrupted Blue and other poems on Polaroid (Hesterglock), Strangers Wave (zimZalla), Poets (The Red Ceilings) and The Continued Closure of the Blue Door (HVTN). Her pamphlet, Some Deer, is forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books and her second full-length collection, Nervous Tic, will be published by Sublunary Editions in Spring 2025. Her poems have appeared in such places as The Rialto, Magma, Tears in the Fence, Perverse and Dreaming Awake: New and Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, edited by Peter Johnson and Cassandra Atherton (MadHat Press) Her reviews have appeared in such places as Poetry London and PN Review and her regular column, ‘Commitment to Chush’, ran in Sublunary Editions’ Firmament magazine for three years. A regular performer at the European Poetry Festival, Vik is a Poetry School Tutor (teaching on the Surreal Narrative, Absurdism and the Grotesque in Poetry) and Director of Disrupted Blue Indie Press Publicity. She co-edits Surreal-Absurd at Mercurius and is Digital Editor at Sublunary Editions. She has a PhD in Dark Humour and the Surreal in Poetry from the University of Birmingham. Her chapbook, One by One, an Oulipian collaboration with the poet, Bob Brightt, is out now with Derek Beaulieu’s No Press.

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