“poem” broadside #355 : TWO POEMS: “010 : I can lift ten thousand pounds” by rob mclennan

 

 

What these fragments conceal. Literality. Prior biographical context. Even the terror is. Deer, coyote, stray dogs. An example, of glorious wounds. Place is everything, sure. Cool and distant, an island. Look at me, look at me. Cut off from the world. A book near a pond. All articulation. The river’s prosody, corporeal. What dawn is repairable. Would you make meme. The very body of language. Slight of hand, slur of speech. It is true that you have. Will prolong. Plunges, headfirst. Future tense that evolves into elegy.

 

 

TWO POEMS:
“010 : I can lift ten thousand pounds” by rob mclennan
for travels around Ireland, July 2025
above/ground press broadside #355

 

 

rob mclennan is the author of some fifty books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. His latest titles include On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025) and the forthcoming the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025). He is the current Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival.

“poem” broadside #355 : TWO POEMS: “she left under a cloud” by Christine McNair

 

she left under a cloud
cirrus – cirrocumulus – altocumulus
altostratus – nimbostratus – cumulus
virga - cumulus fractus - cumulus congestus
noctilucent - cumulonimbus – mammatus –
nacreous – cirrostratus nebulosus – arcus  –  panus
                undulatus asperita 

roughweather

 

 

TWO POEMS:
“she left under a cloud” by Christine McNair
for travels around Ireland, July 2025
above/ground press broadside #353

 

Christine McNair's most recent book is her hybrid poetic memoir Toxemia (Book*hug, 2024). Her two previous books of poetry were Conflict (2012) and Charm (2017). She works as a book doctor in Ottawa.

“poem” broadside #354 : “JD2458624,” by Gil McElroy

 

 

 

I did,
to hear, in air-
conditioned worrying, staying
away from
the amphetamines & ideas
of my passage. What
of building a mid-
sentence apology? What
of it? My
short, un-
ruly shirt saturated
in that Bolivian
summer, until
blood & flesh excluded
me.

Ah, well. I’ll
mouth their
intents, their
funerals, even
their eyes.

There. There’s
my world, which
is harder.

JD2458624
by Gil McElroy
September 2021
above/ground press broadside #354

Gil McElroy is a poet currently living in Colborne, Ontario. His most recent book is Long Division (University of Calgary Press, 2020). He has published eight chapbooks through above/ground press, most recently Some Julian Days: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2019).

“poem” broadside #353 : “notes for a job interview,” by Kate Hargreaves

 

 

small successes are often fluke
and greeting cards demand only so much text
if you can’t chop onions finely enough
and limit reproduction to Xerox and cover tunes
settle for describing the texture of a bitten lip
rough, damp, and threatening to split

 

 

 

notes for a job interview
by Kate Hargreaves
August 2021
above/ground press broadside #353

Kate Hargreaves (she/her) is a writer and book designer in Windsor, Ontario. Her poetry collection Leak was published by Book*hug in 2014, and her second book of poetry, tend, will be released in 2022. She is also the author of Jammer Star, a hi-lo novel for young readers (Orca, 2019), and Talking Derby, a book of prose vignettes (Black Moss, 2013). She usually spends her free time playing roller derby, but she's been busy recovering from a very broken leg. Find her work online at CorusKate.com.