new from above/ground press: apartments, section three by Aaron Tucker

apartments, section three

Aaron Tucker

$3

published in Ottawa by above/ground press in an edition of 200 copies, March 2010; a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy (2010 subscriptions still available); to order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, $2) c/o rob mclennan, 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa ON K1R 6R7

Aaron Tucker's work has appeared in literary journals across Canada including Rampike and Descant. He is currently an Executive member of the Scream Literary Festival and regular book reviewer at http://www.agorereview.ca/, a website he also edits. He is currently living and teaching in Toronto. An earlier part of this same manuscript appeared as a chapbook by The Emergency Response Unit in 2009.

new from above/ground press: Town in a long day of leaving by Marcus McCann

Town in a long day of leaving

by Marcus McCann

$3

Originally published by on the event of the author’s relocation to Toronto from Ottawa by The Onion Union, November 2009; republished in Ottawa by above/ground press in an edition of 200 copies, March 2010; a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy (2010 subscriptions still available); to order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, $2) c/o rob mclennan, 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa ON K1R 6R7, or check out rob_mclennan@hotmail.com

Point system

We are all the same is the moral of the story.

All men are the same is the moral of the story,

but it is not good news. Strangers should never

be encouraged is the moral of the story. Lose

and forfeit your job is the moral of the story.

Come off hard is the moral of the story.

The wolf lives and probably will get you

is the moral of the story. Resistance

is justified is the moral of the story.

Your “but Google is the moral of the story”

is the complete opposite of the truth. Think

before you act is the moral of the story. The last

line of the play is, “The moral of the story isn’t

get along; it’s get to know your neighbor.”

Marcus McCann lived in Ottawa for eight years. Evidence: he published poems in Ottawa-based journals including Bywords, Yawp, the Ottawa Arts Review, The Moose & Pussy, Peter F Yacht Club and Ottawater; performed at the city’s reading series, including the Dusty Owl, Tree, Factory and the Ottawa International Writers Festival; worked with Ottawa’s Chaudiere Books to put out his first trade collection, Soft Where; won the John Newlove Award; hosted CKCU’s Literary Landscapes; organized the Transgress Festival and the Naughty Thoughts Book Club; won the University of Ottawa’s 48 hour novella writing contest; worked with local writing group Ampers&; sold work at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair; and shopped at Ottawa’s independent bookstores, including After Stonewall, Collected Works, Mother Tongue, Nicholas Hoare and Venus Envy.

new from above/ground press: & look there goes a sparrow transplanting soil by Emily Carr

& look there goes a sparrow transplanting soil

Emily Carr

$4

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
in an edition of 200 copies, December 2009
add $1 for postage (outside Canada, add $2 & in American currency)
with cheques to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor,
Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7
2010 subscriptions now available

Emily Carr is writing to loot to hew & Eden, a book of poetry that explores happiness from feminist & ecocritical perspectives. In 2010, directions for flying is forthcoming from Furniture Press & 13 ways of happily: books 1 & 2 is forthcoming from Parlor Press. Emily has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center & the Jack Kerouac House. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Gargoyle, Margie, Caketrain, ISLE, Fiddlehead & The Antigonish.

Cover image by kevin mcpherson eckhoff

new from above/ground press: Poems for Lainna by rob mclennan

Poems for Lainna

by rob mclennan

$4

love is an impossible narrative

there are too many blue cars in this province.

too often beer commercials on television

are the last stop of wisdom. at the hands of the swarm,

came thus but another swarm. a plethora of bees.

if a murder of crows, why not just a pint, then, of poets?

most contemporary horror films

are but scenes of sudden surprise.

emus run wild through the streets of Edmonton.

someone just let them go.

if this is sinful excess, then let it be sinful.

let it be everything it need be then multiplied.

my three fingers that elevator on Whyte

that went nowhere until

we pushed back the button.

this is a true story.

love is a fading photograph

with newer pictures laid overtop.

there are too many blue cars in this province.

cars you can count on the fingers of one hand

coloured peach, lime, orange. the cupboards are bare.

I am caught up with the smooth skin

of an impossible country.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

in an edition of 200 copies, December 2009

add $1 for postage (outside Canada, add $2 & in American currency)

with cheques payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor

Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7

2010 subscriptions now available

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of some twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections Gifts (Talonbooks, 2009), a compact of words (Salmon Publishing, Ireland, 2009), kate street (Moira, Chicago Il, 2009) and wild horses (University of Alberta Press, 2010), as well as a second novel, missing persons (The Mercury Press, 2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry & poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and currently divides his time between Ottawa and Toronto. He regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

above/ground press at the toronto small press book fair

THE TORONTO SMALL PRESS BOOK FAIR AT THE GLADSTONE HOTEL, DECEMBER 12TH, 2009

Because the Toronto Reference Library is having construction work done this fall, we're moving to the fabulous GLADSTONE HOTEL on Queen Street West for this season's Toronto Small Press Book Fair. We're really excited about the location, and we're thrilled to announce the new December date—perfect for holiday shopping, right in the middle of the festive season.

DATE: Saturday, December 12th. (Readers and performers including rob mclennan at 1:30pm on-site)

TIME: 10 am-5 pm (presses should be on-site by 9:30 at the latest—doors open at 9 am)

ADDRESS: 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto M6J 1J6
(Directions: Queen Street West & Gladstone (near Dufferin). Some street parking, some parking in front of Woolfit's on Queen. Nearest paid parking lot: Queen & O'Hara. Public Transit: TTC Queen Streetcar (the stop is right in front of the Gladstone Hotel!) (Facilities for people with disabilities)

2 new chapbooks by above/ground press

Veralum
by Phil Hall
$4

Our / Are Carried Invisibles
by Roland Prevost
$4

publisht in Ottawa by above/ground press. a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy. To order, add $1 for postage, & in Canadian currency; if sending from outside Canada, send in American, payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1R 6R7; above/ground press subscribers receive (honest!) a complimentary copy; calendar year subscriptions available for $40, & include chapbooks, broadsides, STANZAS magazine & The Peter F. Yacht Club.

Roland Prevost recieved the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award (judge: Erin Mouré). His poetry has been published in two previous chapbooks: Metafizz, Bywords, 2007; Dragon Verses, Dusty Owl , 2009. He has also appeared in “Ottawater 3.0”, and “Ottawater 5.0”, above/ground press, Variations Art Zine, Bywords Quarterly Journal, Peter F. Yacht Club, Angel House Press, among others. He was the managing editor of poetics.ca for two years, and currently acts as the managing editor for 17 seconds, an online journal of poetry & poetics. Late at night, he loves to look at the deep sky through his various telescopes.

Phil Hall was born in 1953 & raised on farms in the Kawarthas region of Ontario. He attended the University of Windsor in the 70s, where he received an MA in English & Creative Writing. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published in Mexico City in 1973. Since then he has published 13 other books of poems, 4 chapbooks, & a cassette of labour songs. He is also a publisher of broadsides & chapbooks under his Flat Singles Press imprint. In the early 80s he was a member of The Vancouver Industrial Writers’ Union. In the early 90s he was Literary Editor at This Magazine, & also edited a shortlived literary journal called Don’t Quit Yr Day-Job.Among his titles are: Homes (1979), Old Enemy Juice (1988), The Unsaid (1992), & Hearthedral—A Folk-Hermetic (1996). Trouble Sleeping (2000) was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for poetry. In 2005, Brick Books (celebrating 20 years as Hall’s publisher) brought out An Oak Hunch, which was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2006. Hall has taught writing & literature at the Kootenay School of Writing, York University, Ryerson Polytechnical University, & many colleges.He has been poet-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario, the Sage Hill Writing Experience (Sask.), The Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon, & elsewhere. In 2007, Book Thug published Hall’s new long poem, White Porcupine, & also issue a revised second edition of his essay/poem, The Bad Sequence. Over the years, Hall has collected two full decks of random playing cards from the streets, numerous albums of found photographs, & too many boxes of paper ephemera. He calls all this junk “The Pedestrian Archives.” He is learning to play clawhammer banjo.

a yacht club, an anniversary!

The Peter F. Yacht Club #13, now available!

the above/ground press sweet sixteen; anniversary party & launch!