some author activity: Cone, Tardi, Barwin, Reid + Flemmer,

Jon Cone has an essay up at my (small press) writing day, as does Mark Tardi; Gary Barwin has new work up at The Pi Review; Monty Reid has some poems via Discordia Review; and Kyle Flemmer responds via the '12 or 20 questions' interview.

some author activity: Zhang, Hausner, Sparrow, Melançon, Davis + Adams,

Elena Zhang has work in the Spotlight series; Beatriz Hausner is now part of the Canadian Poets Series at Peripety and/or Tronies; Noah Sparrow has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; Jérôme Melançon is featured in a mini-interview over at Amanda Earl's substack; Jordan Davis has an essay up at my (small press) writing day; and Hypertext mag posts a conversation between Carrie Olivia Adams and Nathan Hoks.

some author activity: Robinson, Shirley, mclennan, Davis, Heroux + Burgoyne,

Elizabeth Robinson has new work up at dialogist; Vik Shirley has both poem and prompt as part of Benjamin Niespodziany's Sunday poem + prompt; rob mclennan is participating all this month in the Tupelo Press 30/30 marathon fundraiser, posting new poems daily; Jordan Davis has new work up at JMWW; Jason Heroux is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey, and has a new piece up at my small press writing day; and did you know that Sarah Burgoyne has an e-newsletter?

some author activity: Quartermain, mclennan, Macdonald, Downs, Jirgens, Marlatt, Bowering + Wah,

Meredith Quatermain is in the Canadian Poet Series via Peripety and/or Tronies; rob mclennan is interviewed as part of Kyeren Regehr's The Poet Laureate Podcast; Dawn Macdonald has an essay up at Strange Pilgrims; Buck Downs has new work at The Arts Fuse; and Karl Jirgens has poems for Daphne Marlatt, George Bowering + Fred Wah over at public reverie.

some author activity: Tierney, mclennan, Wah, Shafer, Skrabalak, Scroggins + Farina,

Orchid Tierney has new work at The Journal; rob mclennan has a poem for Fred Wah up at public reveries; Emily Shafer has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; Ryan Skrabalak answers the "12 or 20 questions" interview; Mark Scroggins has an essay up at "my small press writing day"; and Laura Farina is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Kemp, Wah, Bowering, Smith + Cohen,

Penn Kemp has poems for Fred Wah and George Bowering up at public reverie, and an awful lot of poetry/reading videos up at her YouTube channel; Steven Ross Smith is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Julia Cohen is interviewed via the Memoir Land Author Questionnaire; and don't forget to regularly check out the above/ground press substack, yes? there's lots of extra stuff on there,

some author activity: Crosby, Barwin, Beaulieu, Solomon, Dyckman, Eleftherion + Coulton,

Gregory Crosby has new work in the Spotlight series; Gary Barwin has work up at NewPoetry.ca; Gary Barwin interviews Derek Beaulieu; Misha Solomon is featured in the Canadian Poets Series via Peripety and/or Tronies; and Susanne Dyckman has new work up at Antiphony, as does Melissa Eleftherion and Valerie Coulton.

some author activity: Hoefle, Zhang, Trivedi, Paige, Oniță + Webb,

forthcoming author Harold Hoefle is interviewed via Chaudiere Books in the "six questions" series; Elena Zhang is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Amish Trivedi has new work at autocorrect; Salem Paige has a poem in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Adriana Oniță is interviewed in the "12 or 20 questions" series; and Lindsey Webb is named a finalist for this year's Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, hosted by The Georgia Review.

some author activity: Hawes, Burdick, Paige, Kemp + Crosby,

James Hawes has new work up at carte blanche; Alice Burdick is included in the Canadian Poets Series via peripety and/or tronies; Salem Paige is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Penn Kemp has a new poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; and did you know that Gregory Crosby has a newsletter?

some author activity: Zhang, Braun, Inniss, Berlatsky, Robinson + Koss,

Elena Zhang has a new piece up at Flash Flood and a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; Jacob Braun has new work up at Another Chicago Magazine; Scott Inniss is interviewed via the Found You Magazine podcast; Noah Berlatsky has new poems in the latest issue of Heavy Crown; and Ben Robinson interviews Zane Koss for The Temz Review.

some author activity: mclennan, MacEachern, Burgoyne, Macdonald + the ottawa small press book fair,

rob mclennan has a new poem up at Shadows and Sax; catch Jessi MacEachern and Sarah Burgoyne in conversation via Canthius; Dawn Macdonald has a new essay up at The Wood-Lot; and today is the ottawa small press book fair!

some author activity: Davis, Flemmer, Armantrout, Bartczak + Tardi,

Jordan Davis has ten poems posted at The Fortnightly Review; Kyle Flemmer is interviewed via The Miramichi Reader; Rae Armantrout writes on Fanny Howe for The Fortnightly Review, and has four new poems up at Granta, and a further poem via the website for the Poetry Foundation; and Kacper Bartczak has a new poem up at Poetry Northwest, as translated into English by Mark Tardi.

some author activity: Burdick, Nećakov, Schmaltz + Henning,

Alice Burdick has a new essay up at The New Quarterly; Lillian Nećakov is interviewed alongside Scott Ferry and Lauren Scharhag for the podcast Meat for Teacast; Eric Schmaltz is interviewed by Myra Bloom at ASAP Review; and Barbara Henning has new work up at Long News.

Publishing-in-Transit: Cole Swensen zoom-interviewed Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan + Misha Solomon on above/ground press for Brooklyn Rail: recording now online,

It was such a good conversation! Check out the full hour-plus conversation with myself, Misha Solomon and Jennifer Baker on and around above/ground press, conducted by the brilliant Cole Swensen and hosted by Brooklyn Rail, either here through their site or via their YouTube channel. We talked about VERSeFest, we talked a brief history of above/ground press, we talked about Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] (and hear the legend of how the donkey got its name) and even the “Tuesday poem” series. You can order Misha Solomon’s above/ground press titles here (and his new book over here), Jennifer Baker’s above/ground press titles here, and my above/ground press titles here (or the chapbook I read from, even). Cole Swensen even has an above/ground press title! But you know she has a new book as well, yes? Thanks to everyone who made this thing happen!

Cole Swensen zoom-interviews rob mclennan, Misha Solomon + Jennifer Baker May 20th on above/ground press for Brooklyn Rail,

Publishing-in-Transit: above/ground
Featuring Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan, Misha Solomon

Wednesday, May 20, 2026
1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

REGISTER HERE

Poets Jennifer Baker, rob mclennan, and Misha Solomon join Rail contributor Cole Swensen for a conversation on Zoom on above/ground press (which turns thirty-three years old this summer, by the way). 

Jennifer Baker is a poet and Teaching Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of four chapbooks: Abject Lessons (above/ground press, 2014), Groundling (Trainwreck Press, 2021/reissued by above/ground press, 2023), Memento Mishka (co-authored with David Currie, Apt. 9 Press, 2023), and Wee Walk (above/ground press, 2026). Her work has been featured in Groundwork: Best of above/ground press (2023), Arc Poetry Magazine, Canthius, The Journal of Canadian Poetry, Canadian Literature, Dusie, and the Delisted project. 

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 some fifty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), the poetry collections the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026), and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). The current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, he founded above/ground press, a publisher of chapbooks, journals and other ephemera, way back in July 1993. He also spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. His work has appeared in journals across Canada and has been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, 2026, and 2027 (Biblioasis) and in On Occasion: Poems for the People (Coach House Books). He is the author of three chapbooks, including FLORALS and Misha Solomon's BIODÔME: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster (above/ground press), and one full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet (Brick Books). He has a BA from Columbia University, an MA from Concordia University, and he is currently a student in Concordia’s Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD program.

Cole Swensen [see her above/ground press title here] is the author of twenty volumes of poetry, most recently And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), which was long-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a collection of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise. A book of hybrid poem-essays, Art in Time, was published by Nightboat in 2021. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the LA Times Book Award and has been awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series. She has also translated over twenty volumes of poetry, prose, and art criticism from French and won the 2024 ALTA National Translation Award and the 2025 Stephen Mitchell Translation Award.

some author activity: Tynes, O'Reilly + Robertson,

Jen Tynes was offering nearly-daily poems as part of National Poetry Month over at the Bloof Books blog; Nathanael O'Reilly has new work up at Cordite; and there is a new interview with Lisa Robertson up at minor literature[s], as conducted by Christina Politano.

some author activity: Armantrout, mclennan, fitzpatrick, Smith, Saklikar, Kemp-Gee, Bolster + Solomon,

Rae Armantrout has four poems up at Granta; rob mclennan is interviewed via Coach House for the On Occasion anthology; there's also a hefty interview with mclennan conducted by ryan fitzpatrick; Mahaila Smith is interviewed via the National Poetry Month "POETS RESIST" interview series at All Lit Up, as is Renée Sarojini Saklikar and Meghan Kemp-Gee, and Stephanie Bolster and Misha Solomon's recent chapbooks even get mentioned via the Wikipedia page for Montreal's Biodome, which is cool.

some author activity: Barwin, Tierney, Strang, Mc Donnell, Sparrow, Swensen, Johnson + Earl,

Doreen Nicoll interviews Gary Barwin for the Small Change Podcast; Orchid Tierney has new work in petrichor; Catriona Strang has a poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as does Conor Mc Donnell, Noah Sparrow, Cole Swensen and Chris Johnson; and Amanda Earl is part of an assemblage of translations of John Keats over at Asymptote, as curated by Johanna Drucker.

some author activity: Mellis, Munson, Christie, Brockwell, Niespodziany + Levy,

Miranda Mellis is interviewed over at Tricycle; Jed Munson has new work up at the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, as does Jason Christie (a poem for Stephen Brockwell), Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at The Bulb Region; and John Levy has new work up at The Pi Review.

some author activity: Barwin + Nećakov, Harder, Ebbitt, Koss, Adams + Pirie,

Gary Barwin and Lillian Nećakov have work from a collaboration-in-progress over at talking about strawberries all of the time, where Shelly Harder also has new work, and Pearl Pirie has new work, and Katie Ebbitt is interviewed; Zane Koss has a poem on the Chaudiere Books blog for National Poetry Month, ; Carrie Olivia Adams writes on her reading series, poetry, and biscuits over at LitHub; and Pearl Pirie has two new poems up at The Pi Review.