Poetry at the Avant-Garde (Ottawa, June 1st): Jessi MacEachern, Stuart Ross, & William Vallières

Join us at the Avant-Garde Bar to see Stuart Ross (Cobourg), Jessi MacEachern (Montréal), and William Vallières (Montréal) read from their new poetry chapbooks from above/ground press.
Hosted by Bardia Sinaee.

Thursday, June 1, 2023 : Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa
Event starts at 7:30pm.
Admission is free.
Chapbooks will be available for sale.
See the Eventbrite link here

About the readers:

Jessi MacEachern is a poet who lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal where she teaches English literature. She is the author of A Number of Stunning Attacks. Her chapbook When a Folk, When a Sprawl is her second chapbook with above/ground press.

Stuart Ross, winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize, is the author of over twenty full-length books of poetry, fiction, and essays. Bird Snow on Hard Tracks is his third above/ground press chapbook. Stuart’s work has been translated into French, Norwegian, Slovene, Russian, Spanish, and Estonian. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

William Vallières is a Montreal poet. His work has appeared in The Walrus, Best Canadian Poetry, Event, Grain, and Plenitude. His first book of poetry, Versus (2019), is out with Véhicule Press. His chapbook, Poor Rutebeuf (2023), a translation of the French medieval poet Rutebeuf, is out now with above/ground press.

Event banner artwork by Barbara Caruso.

2023 #AWP (unofficial) offsite (virtual) readings : day two of five: MacEachern, Heroux, Vallières, Webb + Drescher,

Furthering yesterday’s post, as part of the above/ground press thirtieth anniversary, I thought it would be both interesting and amusing to host a virtual (and unaffiliated) offsite reding as part of this year’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual Conference and Bookfair. I mean, offsite means offsite, right?

Jessi MacEachern (she/her) is the author of the poetry collection A Number of Stunning Attacks, as well as the chapbooks Television Poems, You Do Not Like Animal Sounds, and Ravishing the Sex into the Hold. Her new chapbook When a Folk, When a Sprawl is forthcoming with above/ground press in 2023 and her new poetry collection Cut Side Down is forthcoming with Invisible in 2025. She is the 2022–24 reviewer of Poetics for Oxford University Press’s This Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory and is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Bishop’s University.

Jason Heroux was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022. He is the author of four books of poetry: Memoirs of an Alias (2004); Emergency Hallelujah (2008); Natural Capital (2012) and Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines (2016). His recent books include a short fiction collection Survivors of the Hive (Radiant Press) and two poetry chapbooks: New and Selected Days (Origami Poems Project) and Something or Other (above/ground press).

William Vallières is a Montreal poet. His work has appeared in The Walrus, Best Canadian Poetry, Grain, and Event, among other places. His chapbook Poor Rutebeuf, a translation of the French medieval poet Rutebeuf, just appeared through above/ground press. His first book of poems, Versus, is out with Véhicule Press.

Lindsey Webb is the author of the chapbooks House (Ghost Proposal, 2020) and Perfumer’s Organ (above/ground press, 2023). Her writings have appeared in Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, and Lana Turner, among others. She lives in Salt Lake City, where she is a Steffensen Cannon fellow in the PhD program in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah.

Julia Drescher is the author of OPEN EPIC (Delete Press, 2017). Her above/ground chapbooks are BLATTA & Metastatic Flower (2020). She lives in Colorado.

new from above/ground press: Poor Rutebeuf, Translated from the French by William Vallières

Poor Rutebeuf
Translated by William Vallières
$5

In the time of leaves falling,
when there are more leaves falling
    than on the bough,
in a poverty that keeps me cowed,
that comes at me from all around
    like sneaky winter
coldly covering my verse,
my reel starts with a laden purse
    of sad stories.
Poor sense and perspicacity
God gave me, the King of glory,
    and poorer means,
and a cold ass when the winds freeze:
the ice of winds rip through me;
    it is often,
too too often that I feel the wind.
My reels promise to make a mint
    and they do:
I get a pound on the sou
for every misery, a fortune
    of penury.
Poverty is again on me:
its door is wide open wide to me;
    I am the guest
kept at its meagre breast.
In rain wet, in heat, all baked red:
     I go naked! ("Winter Reel")

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

William Vallières is a Montreal poet. His work has appeared in The Walrus, Best Canadian Poetry 2019, Grain, periodicities, Event, Plenitude, and other places. His first book of poetry, Versus, is out with Véhicule Press. He’s currently working on a book about the eccentric Québécois inventor—his grandfather—Jean St-Germain.

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: Norris, Gold, Armantrout, Martin + mclennan,

Vehicule poets and above/ground press authors Ken Norris and Artie Gold are part of the brand-new Vehicule Poets website; Will Vallières discusses the title poem of Rae Armantrout's chapbook, Custom, over at Lemonhound; Camille Martin has new poetry up at The Rusty Toque, and reads in Vancouver with Andrew Kaufman and Barry Webster at the UBC Robson Reading Series on March 14, 2013; and rob mclennan has a new poem on Konundrum Engine Literary Engine.