new from above/ground press: BIODÔME: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by Stephanie Bolster

BIODÔME: Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Stephanie Bolster
with an introduction by Misha Solomon
and new afterword by the author
$6

HOUSING THE GREAT AUK

Masses of glass, rocks at the back,
craggy, like the outcroppings in illustrations.
To think they thought the last had snuffed it!
Water at the front, so its splash
will make the gawkers flinch.
Can’t take long or journalists will catch
the squawks and then our coup
will cool. Remember the coelacanth?
Give it eels, beetles, chocolate ices
if it wants. Keep each lost feather
for the shop – a transparent envelope,
ten pounds, twenty? At night when they go home
we can ask it about the nineteenth century.
The sea teeming with ships! We were a marvel.

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

Stephanie Bolster’s latest book of poetry, Long Exposure, appeared with Palimpsest Press in fall 2025. Excerpts from the book were finalists for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2019. Bolster’s first book, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General’s Award and the Gerald Lampert Award and was translated into French as Pierre Blanche. Her poems have also been translated into Spanish, German, and Serbo-Croatian. Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and The Ishtar Gate: Last and Selected Poems by the late Ottawa poet Diana Brebner, and co-editor of Penned: Zoo Poems, she was born in Vancouver and grew up in Burnaby, BC. She has been a professor of creative writing at Concordia University since 2000 and lives in Pointe-Claire, Québec, on the Mohawk (Kanien’kehá:ka) territory of Skaniatara:ti.

Many of the poems from this chapbook were later incorporated into and published as part of Stephanie Bolster’s A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth (London ON: Brick Books, 2011), a book shortlisted for the 2012 Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Thanks to Brick Books for the permission to reprint this anniversary edition.

This is Stephanie Bolster’s fifth above/ground press chapbook, after Three Bloody Words (1996), BIODÔME (2006), Three Bloody Words: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2016) and GHOSTS (2017).

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: cuba A book: twentieth anniversary edition, by Monty Reid

cuba A book
twentieth anniversary edition
Monty Reid
$6

 

Imagination
always has a body.

Revolution always
has a boat.

You have entered
the black room

and the celebrated boat
is preserved

in a glass house
in the old city.

Description
is no longer possible.

What's left
of the sea

has never
arrived.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

[Monty Reid will be launching this title in Ottawa on August 7, 2025 as part of the above/ground press 32nd anniversary reading/launch at RedBird Live; tickets and other information available soon]

Monty Reid was born in Saskatchewan, and currently lives in Ottawa. He is the author of the full-length collections Karst Means Stone (NeWest Press, 1979), The Life of Ryley (Thistledown Press, 1981), The Dream of Snowy Owls (Longspoon Press, 1983), The Alternate Guide (Red Deer College Press, 1985), These Lawns (Red Deer College Press, 1990), Dog Sleeps: Irritated Texts (NeWest Press, 1993), Crawlspace: New and Selected Poems (House of Anansi Press, 1993), Flat Side (Red Deer College Press, 1998), Disappointment Island (Chaudiere Books, 2006), Luskville Reductions (Brick Books, 2008), Garden (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and Meditatio Placentae (Brick Books, 2016). The former Managing Editor of Arc Poetry Magazine, he was the Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival for more than a decade.

This is Reid’s seventh chapbook with above/ground press, following Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (2000), cuba A book (2005), In the Garden (sept series) (2011), Moan Coach (2013), seam (2018) and Where there’s smoke (2023). above/ground press produced the festschrift Report from the Reid Society Vol. 1 No. 1 in 2022.

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

pre-order now available! groundwork: The best of the third decade of above/ground press: 2013–2023

Celebrating thirty years of continuous activity with well over twelve hundred publications to date, groundwork celebrates the third decade of rob mclennan’s Ottawa-based above/ground press, publisher of lyric, innovative, and experimental writing across a wealth of chapbooks, broadsides and multiple simultaneous journals, including Touch the Donkey, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T [a journal of guest editors]. Following on the heels of the anthologies GROUNDSWELL, best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003) and Ground Rules: the Best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013 (Chaudiere Books, 2013), groundwork pushes against the short-lived and the ephemeral of small and micro press publishing. Firmly situated in his home base of Ottawa, above/ground press revels in the possibility of expansive conversations between writers, writing and readership, and groundwork works to acknowledge mclennan’s deep and ongoing dedication to the work of hundreds of contemporary writers across North America and beyond. See link here to pre-order!

Contributors:

Jordan Abel
Jennifer Baker
Gregory Betts
Alice Burdick
Allison Cardon
Kimberly Campanello
Norma Cole
Julia Drescher
Kristjana Gunnars
Natalie Hanna
Brenda Iijima
Emily Izsak
N.W. Lea
damian lopes
Natalie Lyalin
Rob Manery
rob mclennan
Christine McNair
Allyson Paty
Julia Polyck-O’Neill
Shazia Hafiz Ramji
Stuart Ross
Kate Siklosi
George Stanley
Hugh Thomas
Chris Turnbull

new from above/ground press: THE TASMANIAN DEVIL & other poems: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by John Newlove

THE TASMANIAN DEVIL & other poems
Twentieth Anniversary Edition
John Newlove
with an introduction by J.A. Weingarten
$5

IT’S WINTER IN OTTAWA

The streets are full of overweight corporals,
of sad grey computer captains, the impedimentia
of a capital city, struggling through the snow.

There is a cold gel on my belly, an instrument
is stroking it incisively, the machine
in the half-lit room is scribbling my future.

It is not illegal to be unhappy.
A shadowy technician says alternately,
Breathe, and, You may stop now.
It is not illegal to be unhappy.

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

originally published in an edition of 300 copies by above/ground press, September 1999 as John Newlove's final publication of new work, after The Night the Dog Smiled (ECW Press, 1986).

The publisher wishes to thank Susan Newlove, and the estate of John Newlove for permission to reissue this title.

John Newlove (1938-2003) was born and raised in Saskatchewan. He began publishing while working various jobs in Vancouver in the 1960s. His many honours included the 1972 Governor General’s Award for his book Lies, and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild Founders’ Award. His works have been internationally published and translated. His posthumous collection, A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poetry of John Newlove, edited by Robert McTavish with an Afterword by Jeff Derksen, appeared through Chaudiere Books in 2007, and is now available through Invisible Publishing.

J.A. Weingarten is a Professor of Language and Liberal Studies at Fanshawe College. His first book, Sharing the Past, was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2019. He is currently completing work on The Selected Letters of John Newlove.

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: Some Julian Days: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by Gil McElroy

Some Julian Days : Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Gil McElroy
with a new afterword by the author
$5

Julian Day 2448254

So we reach a level
of particularity, & such acts of
motion as are prior to hindsights
are, on their own,
largely erased.  We face
the inevitable need
for rooms & the stuff
of homes.

One
religion is needed, one
avenue & form of literature - happy
English words, useful
in the distant study
of the dead.

I lack
all the right words
for instincts. Have we
completely acceptable senses?
Or is the formation
of successive days but one tiny occasion
of senses newly dead?

Understand,
such a place in myself
is built
with appropriate names.

Light & desire
generate words
in my heart.

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

Some Julian Days was originally produced by above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, March 1999.

Gil McElroy is a poet, visual artist, curator, and visual arts critic. He has published four books of poetry with Talonbooks, a collection of art writing with Gaspereau Press, and a memoir about his father and what it was like growing up a military brat during the height of the Cold War that was also published by Talonbooks. His visual art has been exhibited in galleries across Canada, and he has curated exhibitions for numerous art galleries.

He’s also published numerous chapbooks, and in 2013, was co-winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award for The Merton Lake Propers published by Baseline Press in London, Ontario.

He currently lives in Colborne.

Gil McElroy is the author of seven previous above/ground press chapbooks, including “Echolocations” (½ of STANZAS #5, April 1995), Some Julian Days (1999), “Meteor Showers” (STANZAS #31, 2002), (The Work of Art) In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (2005), Twentieth (2013), The Doxologies (2014) and LAOS (Some Julian Days) (2018). He also had a poem in the above/ground press twenty-fifth anniversary broadside series (2018).

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 Appetites of Tiny Hands: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by Natalee Caple

The Appetites of Tiny Hands: Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Natalee Caple
with a new afterword by the author
$5

Be lenient with me

(tiny white signals
too small to be photographed.)

I make no music
(exposed by the wind.)

I do not claim to suffer

To spur the sorry
(blue one I never meant to love)

the birds I have kept hidden in my attic
are quiet now.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 26, 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

The Appetites of Tiny Hands was originally produced through above/ground press in an edition of 150 copies, November 26 1997, “for a reading at the Imperial Library Pub, Toronto as part of an above/ground press night – Natalee Caple, Stephen Cain, Jim Larwill & rob mclennan.”

Natalee Caple is the author of seven books of poetry and fiction and the co-editor of an anthology of contemporary Canadian writers. The New York Times called her fiction “moving … unsettling.” The Washington Post described her writing as “breathlessly good.” Caple’s latest novel, In Calamity’s Wake, was published by HarperCollins in Canada and by Bloomsbury in the US. She is a professor of English, teaching Canadian literature and Creative Writing at Brock University.

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

new from above/ground press: Tribeca: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by Joe Blades

Tribeca: Twentieth Anniversary Edition

by Joe Blades

with a new afterword by the author

$5

in tompkins square

no one bothers us

with our bag-wrapped vodka

here in the night

in tompkins square

even though we don’t sit

near trashcan fires

or have cardboard

bedding under plastic

we sit pulling grain

watching cops on avenue a

behind our backs

an open-columned shrine

faith · hope · charity · compassion

carved in lintel stones

we leave the bottle

empty in its paper bag

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

November 2017

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Tribeca was originally produced through above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, May 1997. It subsequently appeared in the anthology Groundswell: the best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Fredericton NB: Broken Jaw Press / cauldron books, 2003), edited by rob mclennan.

Joe Blades is currently is a PhD Interdisciplinary Studies student at the University of New Brunswick Fredericton where he also earned a MEd in 2012. A participant– researcher in Canadian Studies in the Balkans since 2004, Blades has authored seven poetry books, with three of them also published in Serbian translation. His writings are in over 50 anthologies as well as more than 30 chapbooks the most recent of which is november poems (dusie kollektiv 8 & BS Poetry Society).

This is Blades’ fifth chapbook with above/ground press, after In the Valley of the Shadow of Poets' Corner (1994), Tribeca (1997), wriding (2000) and “t sea ache,” produced as STANZAS #19 (February 1999).

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

new from above/ground press: Three Bloody Words : Twentieth Anniversary Edition, by Stephanie Bolster

Three Bloody Words : Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Stephanie Bolster
with a new afterword by the author
$5

my name is rose red blood

                                                             dark lips it’s all the same negation of everything my sister is they knew all along when we were born i was lesser more susceptible to lust less likely to reward them with golden grandchildren so she got the bear when he turned prince

                                                  i wish he had stayed dark & furry his skin thick as rugs smelling of musk wilted roses the inside of caves our new castle never a home not dark enough for me to steal away to him always his fair brother dozing beside me & him too far away in the next room with her dreaming of ripe berries

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2016
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Three Bloody Words was originally produced through above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, May 1996. It subsequently appeared in the anthology Groundswell: the best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Fredericton NB: Broken Jaw Press / cauldron books, 2003), edited by rob mclennan.

Stephanie Bolster is the author of four books of poetry, the first of which, White Stone: The Alice Poems (Signal/Véhicule, 1998), won the Governor General’s and the Gerald Lampert Awards. Her latest book, A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth (Brick Books, 2011) was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award and more recent work was a finalist for the Canada Writes/CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and The Ishtar Gate: Last and Selected Poems by the late Ottawa poet Diana Brebner, and co-editor of Penned: Zoo Poems, she was born in Vancouver and teaches creative writing at Concordia University in Montréal, where she also coordinates the writing program.

This is Stephanie Bolster’s third above/ground press chapbook, after the original Three Bloody Words (1996) and Biodome (2006).

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