some author activity: McNair, Hawes, Saklikar, Bell, MacEachern + Armantrout,

Christine McNair has added a rare new post to her blog; James Hawes has a poem up at SQUID; Renée Sarojini Saklikar is interviewed in the 5 Questions series by Finnian Burnett; Wade Bell offers his own piece on filling Station for The Typescript; Jessi MacEachern has new work up at the ex-puritan; and Rae Armantrout has a poem up at The London Review of Books.

some author activity: Houbolt, MacEachern, Inniss, mclennan, Jirgens + Beaulieu,

Kyla Houbolt has a new poem up at The Pi Review, as does Jessi MacEachern; Scott Inniss is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; rob mclennan is interviewed by Jamie Tennant over at his podcast; and Karl Jirgens offers an homage to Aritha van Herk, Fred Wah and Derek Beaulieu as part of acknowledging thirty years of filling Station magazine via The Typescript.

some author activity: Praamsma, Dyckman, Novak, Barwin + Beaulieu,

Wanda Praamsma is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Susanne Dyckman has new work up at Posit; JoAnna Novak is interviewed by Tara Anne Dalbow for BOMB; Gary Barwin is interviewed by Open Book; and Derek Beaulieu writes about his time at filling Station for The Typescript.

some author activity: Dolman, Flemmer, Iijima + Gray,

Anita Dolman has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; Kyle Flemmer is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; he also takes over from Nikki Sheppy as Managing Editor of filling Station magazine this April; Brenda Iijima and Wendy Burk have a conversation over at Entropy; and forthcoming above/ground press author, the Brooklyn poet and filmmaker Stephanie Gray, has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog.

Nikki Sheppy reviews Renée Sarojini’s After the Battle of Kingsway, the Bees— (2016) in filling Station #68

Calgary poet and editor [and Touch the Donkey contributor] Nikki Sheppy provides a new review of Renée Sarojini’s bpNichol Chapbook Award-shortlisted title After the Battle of Kingsway, the Bees— (2016), alongside reviews of new works by Jordan Abel, Helen Hajnoczky and Natalie Lauchlan, in filling Station #68, an issue billed as “the small press issue.” Thanks so much! This is actually the second review of Saklikar’s chapbook, after Scott Bryson was good enough to discuss it over at Broken Pencil. As Sheppy writes:

Bees, not moths, figure in Renée Sarojini Saklikar’s butter-coloured chapbook, After the Battle of Kingsway, the Bees— from above/ground press. The 15-page suite is an excerpt from volume 2 of Saklikar’s ongoing long work about place and identity, thecanadaproject—from which her first book, Children of Air India, un/authorized exhibits and interjections, also draws.

Set on Vancouver’s Kingsway, the poem suite sidles back and forth between the floral homeland of bees and urban scenes of protest and assembly, curiously counterpoising natural and built habitats: “Blackberry, buttercup, fireweed, / hairycat’s ear, thistle // of demonstrations.” Probing issues of housing, Saklikar seamlessly moves from Carder bees congregating on clover to demonstrators behind barricades outside Rentalsman, from a bee’s warmed wax cup to abductions and detainees. The contrast is strategic, but gentle, thoughtfully placing a magnifying lens over snatched moments and details.

Her “many genera” moving in the lee of “condo cranes,” or roused to action on the steps of a public building, yearn in solidarity: “O for a hundred thousand / homes we might call to.” Their struggles bend them towards nature’s weedy resilience: “they longed to feed him / larkspur, large-leaved lupine, / wrap him blue weed, viper’s bugloss.” The collection closes with testimony, incarceration, and lament, but also with asylum amidst the cedar and sequoia.

“poem” broadside #342 : “A child speaks to St. Augustine” by rob mclennan

Take up, read. A manner of trace. This footpath, garners. Pints. Take up. Gathers: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta. Epsilon. But, the clouds. A pirated code. Two hands, English. The grace of Christ, he reasoned, was indispensable to human freedom. Phrasing, wonder. Little snowflake. Take up. Builds, an east wind. We fabricate syntax. To know more than nothing.

A child speaks to St. Augustine
by rob mclennan
produced in part as a filling Station handout for Calgary’s inaugural Canzine small press and zine fair, November 4th, 2017
above/ground press broadside #342

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his latest chapbook is It’s still winter (above/ground press, 2017), a fragment of the work-in-progress “the book of smaller”. He also has two poetry collections forthcoming: Life Sentence (Flat Singles Press, 2018) and Household items (Salmon Poetry, 2018).

above/ground press contributes to the filling Station fundraiser

above/ground press has donated a whole MOUND of chapbooks to the filling Station magazine fundraiser! [there have been a number of fundraisers lately; did you see this one for Canthius?] Check the link here to bid on this magnificent collection (some of which are extremely rare), or even here for other items in their fabulous auction! The nineteen titles included in the above/ground press package are by Calgary poets, both former and current, produced by above/ground press over the past two decades. Most of these items are still available through the press, but a couple of them only through the recent "backlist/rarities" list.

The Appetites of Tiny Hands
Natalee Caple
1997

MY CITY IS ANCIENT AND FAMOUS
Julia Williams
2004

[Dear Fred]
derek beaulieu
2004

A, You're Adorable
George Bowering as "Ellen Field"
2004

"Calcite Gours 1-19," STANZAS #38
derek beaulieu
2004

Adolesce
ryan fitzpatrick
2005

The writing that should enter into conversation
Natalie Simpson
2005

& look there goes a sparrow transplanting soul [3 eclogues]
Emily Carr
2009

Further to Our Conversation
Robert Kroetsch
2011

@BillMurray in Purgatorio
nathan dueck
2013

Cursed Objects
Jason Christie
2014

Braking and Blather
Emily Ursuliak
2014

transcend transcribe transfigure transform transgress
derek beaulieu
2014

dealingwithit.gif
ryan fitzpatrick
2015

The Charm
Jason Christie
2015

Ins & Outs
Nicole Markotić
2015

10 Poems
Christian Bök
2016

ERASURE: a short story
Braydon Beaulieu
2016

REFRAMING PAUL CADMUS
John Barton
2016

some author activity: Irwin, Best, timewell, Trivedi + Abel,

Marilyn Irwin has a poem featured on the Matrix Magazine website; Ashley-Elizabeth Best is interviewed over at Kingstonist; lary bremner/timewell has a new photo album up at the Kootenay School of Writing website; Amish Trivedi has a blog; and Jordan Abel is seeking submissions for a special issue of filling Station magazine, "Experimentation in First Peoples' Art and Literature."

And we'll see you at The Fisher Fine and Small Press Fair today at the University of Toronto, yes?

some author activity: Thomas, Martin, beaulieu, Reid, Young + mclennan

[photo of how we would have preferred to move into the new house] Hugh Thomas has a new poem posted as part of the dusie "Tuesday Poem" series; Camille Martin reviews The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University of California Press, 2009), edited by Mark Weiss, over at her blog, and is interviewed by Katie Rosenthal over at Stated Magazine; derek beaulieu gives "advice to aspiring poets" through a q+a with Gauntlet; Monty Reid, Deanna Young and rob mclennan read at the Ottawa Public Library on October 7 with David Groulx, Rhonda Douglas and Chris Jennings, and mclennan also conducts a poetry workshop (pre-registration required) on October 17; and rob mclennan has quite the author page (as do others, I'm sure) over at filling Station magazine.

some author activity: beaulieu, Earl, McKinnon, mclennan + Abel

derek beaulieu has been doing a series of posts for the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver blog, and his final post is on Erica Baum; Amanda Earl is featured on Lucy Morrissey's On paper blog; beaulieu and Mark Young have a new collaborative piece online at Text Image Sound Failure; the third of rob mclennan's four-part interview with Barry McKinnon is now online at the filling Station blog; Jordan Abel has sent out a call for submission for the eighth issue of Poetry is Dead magazine, focusing on sound; and ross priddle has been posting a regular series of above/ground press posts here and here on his bentspoon blog.

some author activity: Ladouceur, Grayhurst, mclennan, McKinnon + Robertson

Ben Ladouceur has some poems in Dragnet #7; Alison Grayhurst posted a new poem up on her blog; rob mclennan has four prose poems in Talking Writing; part two of the four-part interview with Barry McKinnon, conducted by rob mclennan, is now online at the filling Station blog; Lisa Robertson has a bio up on The Poetry Foundation site (with various links to her activity); and above/ground press (along with many other local writers, publishers and events) are mentioned in Kelley Tish Baker's Ottawa article on the Ploughshares blog.

some author activity: Anstee, McKinnon, mclennan, Landman, eckhoff, Hall + Bowering,

Over on his mighty blog, Cameron Anstee (briefly) discusses a couple of things, including above/ground press, and his poems in the new issue of ottawater; the first of a four-part interview with Barry McKinnon, conducted by rob mclennan, is now online at the filling Station magazine website, as an extra to their new issue focusing on Prince George BC poets and poetics; Seth Landman has something new in HTMLGIANT; kevin mcpherson eckhoff is offering a series of what he calls "inside fridge painting originals"; and Phil Hall and George Bowering perform along with many others at The Al Purdy Show in Toronto, February 6, 2013, as a celebration of poetry and music to benefit to the Al Purdy A-Frame.

some author activity: Hall, Armantrout, Martin, mclennan + Pinder/Earl poems delivered to Shakespeare and Company!

How did I miss this Phil Hall poem in Forget? Otherwise, Rae Armantrout was interviewed in the new, improved Lemonhound, as well as in The Believer on, among other subjects, Emily Dickinson; James Pickersgill interviewed Camille Martin recently; and I seem to have an author page on the new filling Station website.

The photo, by the by, is of the Sarah Pinder and Amanda Earl poem broadsides I dropped off a week ago at Shakespeare and Company in Paris, while Christine and I were on our honeymoon!