new from above/ground press: ANGELTONGUE / LENGUA DE ÁNGEL, by Miguel E. Ortiz Rodríguez

ANGELTONGUE / LENGUA DE ÁNGEL
Miguel E. Ortiz Rodríguez
$5

who does not speak
with angelical tongue
Rose Ausländer

is in-
completeness
the angelical
strategy /
only one
tongue
can erase
another /

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Illustrations by María Octavia Russo Pons

Miguel E. Ortiz Rodríguez, Caracas, 1993. Licentiate in Letras (Literature and Linguistics) by Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Venezuela).

He has participated in literary workshops with Venezuelan writers Sael Ibáñez, Natasha Tiniacos, Fedosy Santaella, Miguel Marcotrigiano, María Auxiliadora Álvarez, Igor Barreto and Luis Miguel Isava.

His poems have been published in Stand Up Poetry (Vzla), Revista Cantera #2 (Vzla), Revista Ojo #25 (Vzla), Revista Sinécdoque #1, Revista Canibalismos #2 y #6 (Vzla), Revista Caligrama #3 (Spain), Revista Furman 217 #2 (USA), digopalabra.txt (Vzla).

Poems of his also appear in the anthologies of Venezuelan poetry 102 poetas: Jamming (Oscar Todtmann, 2014) and Amanecimos bajo la palabra (Team Poetero, 2017).

He has been a finalist in the I Certamen Mundial Excelencia Literaria (Poetry Mention, 2015, USA) in the I Concurso de Prosa Poética Ojos Verdes Ediciones (Spain, 2016) and in the Duende Poetry Tranlation Contest (USA, 2017).

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: Love / Wildness, by Natalee Caple

Love / Wildness
Natalee Caple
$5

Motions of Confession

We spent years on our futures
trying on colours
our neighbours were lovers

We orphaned texts
wrote long etceteras
drank and danced

I trace you
between paragraphs
your children too

Drawl in your reading voice
crushed velvet dress
bill and Mitch play chess

As if it never ended
I never moved West
you never moved East

Stopped writing
am I wrong?
I'd like to be

O Nancy when you feel wicked
wait for me

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Natalee Caple is the author of nine books of poetry and fiction. Her latest book of poetry, Love in the Chthulucene/Cthulhucene (from which these poems come) will be out with Wolsak and Wynn in Spring 2019. Natalee is an associate professor at Brock University.

This is her third chapbook with above/ground press, after The Appetites of Tiny Hands (1997) and The Appetites of Tiny Hands: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2017).

[Natalee Caple will be launching this title as part of THE ABOVE/GROUND PRESS SILVER ANNIVERSARY READING/LAUNCH/PARTY on August 25, 2018 at Ottawa's Vimy Brewing Company!]

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: Everything will be taken away., by Julia Polyck-O'Neill

Everything will be taken away.
Julia Polyck-O’Neill
$5

new blank
(after Lisa Robertson’s “The Apothecary”)

Tersely;
recast my dialogue

May I run my hand over the photograph & feel reabsorbed?

run the touch over screen / thumb the fibres

I depend on the botanics of abuse;

I repeat your name in circles until it evaporates / a dark & florid thing
a phenomenon smooth like jade

Allergic & fluid;
Tucked & throttled

shed my own botched history

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Julia Polyck-O’Neill is an artist, curator, critic, and writer. She is a doctoral candidate in Brock University’s Interdisciplinary Humanities program, where she is completing a SSHRC-funded interdisciplinary and comparative critical study of contemporary conceptualist literature and art in Vancouver. She has taught in art history and contemporary visual culture, and is currently a visiting lecturer and scholar in Transnational American Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Her writing has been published in B.C. Studies, Feminist Spaces, Tripwire, Fermenting Feminisms (a project of the Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, curated by Lauren Fournier), The Avant Canada Anthology (WLU Press, forthcoming 2018), and is co-editing a special issue of the journal Canadian Literature with Gregory Betts. Her debut chapbook, femme, was published in 2016 by above/ground press.

[Julia Polyck-O'Neill will be launching this title as part of THE ABOVE/GROUND PRESS SILVER ANNIVERSARY READING/LAUNCH/PARTY on August 25, 2018 at Ottawa's Vimy Brewing Company!]

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

poemeleon : the Canadian issue : Anstee, Braune, Christie, dueck, Earl, Graf, hanna, McCann, Pirie, Polyck-O’Neill, Saklikar, Siklosi, etc

A whole slew of above/ground press authors (and not-yet-authors) have been included in the Canadian issue of the American online poetry journal poemeleon!

Including: Cameron Anstee, Juliane Okot Bitek, Sean Braune, Jason Christie, nathan dueck, Klara du Plessis, Amanda Earl, Claire Farley, Kerry Gilbert, Adele Graf, natalie hanna, Emily Izsak, Sonnet L’Abbé, Michael Lithgow, Canisia Lubrin, Marcus McCann, Annick MacAskill, Sarah MacDonell, Pearl Pirie, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Rebecca Salazar, Kate Siklosi, Sennah Yee and Suzanne Zelazo.

Check out the issue here. Enjoy!

new from above/ground press: glass language (excerpt), by Jason Christie

glass language (excerpt)
Jason Christie
$5

Writing it's like
Snowfall, Problems
outside to bow and
sludge and aloft, not
blanched fog, poems like
the look of molten metal
or friendship, shoulders or
music filling rooms around me,
drones of bright notes flash past
and pace the way. Lining the year
all dawn is drawn now, snow goes
slow through fog lights, i am
asleep through what goes
with it, clouds slow a
stillness into a light, i
resist the day, who began
whispering my nothings,
harsh and over and a new
Feeling like some jingle or
itinerant body passing as sleep
surrounds my eternal pledge of
concept and reason, twin
grey strips of material
and fatigue, to be on and on
1/12/15, 12/14/15, 09/22/15

and We get quiet pretending,
We get days Unbegun
upthrust rain cresting ground
where we inlet each grey day
My furniture strewn, my
Hair is a mess with this wind
 Dim morning light to be outside
Then I'm answering questions
of necessity, we knew you when
12/10/14 click the link
hey, Emmett Starts daycare
all little voice and big noise

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jason Christie is the author of Canada Post (Snare), i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and a co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury). His next book will be published by Coach House in the Spring of 2019.

This is his sixth chapbook with above/ground press, after 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013), Cursed Objects (2014), The Charm (2015) and random_lines = random.choice (2017).

[Jason Christie will be launching this title as part of THE ABOVE/GROUND PRESS SILVER ANNIVERSARY READING/LAUNCH/PARTY on August 25, 2018 at Ottawa's Vimy Brewing Company!]

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

THE ABOVE/GROUND PRESS SILVER ANNIVERSARY READING/LAUNCH/PARTY!

celebrating twenty-five years of continuous activity (and nearly nine hundred publications), Ottawa publisher above/ground press presents: 

nine readings and chapbook launches by:

Natalee Caple (St. Catharines ON)
Jason Christie (Ottawa)

Julia Polyck-O’Neill (Toronto)
Stuart Ross (Cobourg ON)
Aaron Tucker (Toronto)
Phil Hall (Perth ON)
Stephen Brockwell (Ottawa)
natalie hanna (Ottawa)
+
Billy Mavreas (Montreal) 

lovingly hosted by above/ground press editor/publisher rob mclennan 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 2018
Vimy Brewing Company
145 Loretta Ave N #1, Ottawa, ON K1Y 2J7
http://www.vimybrewing.ca/
7pm door/7:30pm reading

$6 at the door; includes a copy of a recent above/ground press title

THIS EVENT WILL ALSO SEE THE INTRODUCTION OF LIMITED-EDITION SWAG (T-SHIRTS AND TOTE BAGS), PRODUCED BY OTTAWA’S OWN TROUBLEMAKER PRINT https://www.facebook.com/TroublemakerPrint/

See the Globe & Mail’s recent piece on the press here.

See rob’s write-up earlier this year onthe press here.

As well as a series of essays by avariety of above/ground press authors and friends of the press here.

author/performer biographies: 

Natalee Caple is the author of nine books of poetry and fiction. Her latest book of poetry, Love in the Chthulucene/Cthulhucene (from which these poems come) will be out with Wolsak and Wynn in Spring 2019. Natalee is an associate professor at Brock University.

She will be launching her third chapbook with above/ground press—Love / Wildness (2018)—after The Appetites of Tiny Hands (1997) and The Appetites of Tiny Hands: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2017). 

Jason Christie is the author of Canada Post (Snare), i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and a co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury). His next book will be published by Coach House in the Spring of 2019.

He will be launching his sixth chapbook with above/ground press—glass language (excerpt) (2018)—after 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013), Cursed Objects (2014), The Charm (2015) and random_lines = random.choice (2017). 

Julia Polyck-O’Neill is an artist, curator, critic, and writer. She is a doctoral candidate in Brock University’s Interdisciplinary Humanities program, where she is completing a SSHRC-funded interdisciplinary and comparative critical study of contemporary conceptualist literature and art in Vancouver. She has taught in art history and contemporary visual culture, and was, until very recently, a visiting lecturer and scholar in Transnational American Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Her writing has been published in B.C. Studies, Feminist Spaces, Tripwire, Fermenting Feminisms (a project of the Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, curated by Lauren Fournier), The Avant Canada Anthology (WLU Press, forthcoming 2018), and is co-editing a special issue of the journal Canadian Literature with Gregory Betts. Her debut chapbook, femme, was published in 2016 by above/ground press.

She will be launching her second chapbook, Everything will be taken away. (2018). 

Stuart Ross is the author of 20 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and countless chapbooks and ephemera. His most recent books include the novel-in-prose-poems Pockets (ECW Press, 2017) and the poetry collection A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (Wolsak and Wynn, 2016), which won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry in 2017. Other titles include the poetry collection A Hamburger in a Gallery (DC Books, 2015), the novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew (ECW Press, 2011), and the story collection Buying Cigarettes for the Dog (Freehand Books, 2009). Stuart began his literary career by selling his self-published chapbooks on the streets of Toronto during the 1980s, wearing signs like “Writing Going To Hell: Buy My Books.” He was the 2010 Writer in Residence at Queen’s University, and has taught writing workshops across Canada. His poetry has recently been translated into French; other translations, into Nynorsk and Spanish, are in progress. His micropress, Proper Tales, is lurching toward its 40th year of publishing. Stuart lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

He will be launching his above/ground press debut, ESPESANTES (2018). 

Aaron Tucker is the author of the forthcoming novel Y: Oppenheimer, Horseman of Los Alamos (Coach House Books) as well as two books of poetry, Irresponsible Mediums: The Chess Games of Marcel Duchamp (Bookthug Press) and punchlines (Mansfield Press), and two scholarly cinema studies monographs, Virtual Weaponry: The Militarized Internet in Hollywood War Films and Interfacing with the Internet in Popular Cinema (both published by Palgrave Macmillan).

His current collaborative project, Loss Sets, translates poems into sculptures which are then 3D printed (http://aarontucker.ca/3-d-poems/); he is also the co-creator of The ChessBard, an app that transforms chess games into poems (http://chesspoetry.com).

An earlier version of punchlines was released by above/ground in the summer of 2013. His poetic works and reviews have been published across Canada. His previous chapbook, apartments, was shortlisted for the 2010 bpNichol Chapbook award.

Currently, he is an uninvited guest on the Dish with One Spoon Territory, where he is a lecturer in the English department at Ryerson University (Toronto), teaching creative and academic writing. You can reach him atucker[at]ryerson[dot]ca

Tucker is the author of three above/ground press chapbooks, including apartments (2010), punchlines (2013) and this year’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018). 

Phil Hall’s most recent books are Guthrie Clothing: The Poetry of Phil Hall – A Selected Collage (Sir Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015), Conjugation (BookThug, 2016), & Le pluvier kildir (translated by Rose Després / Prise de parole, 2015). He lives near Perth Ontario.

He will be launching his third above/ground press chapbook—a collaboration with Stuart Kinmond, Alternative Girders (2018)—after Verulam (2009) and the collaborative Shikibu Shuffle (with Andrew Burke; 2012). 

Stephen Brockwell cut his writing teeth in the ’80s in Montreal, appearing on French and English CBC Radio and in the anthologies Cross/cut: Contemporary English Quebec Poetry and The Insecurity of Art (both Véhicule Press, 1982). All of Us Reticent, Here, Together won the Archibald Lampman award for best book of poetry in Ottawa in 2017. Brockwell currently operates a small IT consulting company from an office in Ottawa’s By Ward Market.

He will be launching his fifth above/ground press chapbook—Immune to the Sacred (2018)—after Marin County Poems (2001), Impossible Books (the Carleton Installment) (2010), Excerpts from Impossible Books: The Crawdad Cantos (2012) and Images from Declassified Nuclear Test Films (2014). 

natalie hanna is a queer, feminist, ottawa lawyer, of middle-eastern descent working with low income populations. her writing focuses on feminist, political, and personal themes. She runs battleaxe press (small poetry press) / is the Administrative Director of the Sawdust Reading Series / serves as newsletter editor and board member at Arc Poetry Magazine.  Her work, interviews, have appeared online and in print in various publications, including with Literary Landscapes, In/Words Magazine, phafours press, Hussy Press, Bywords, the Dusie Blog, the Chaudiere Books Blog, Canthius, shreeking violet press, and Peter F. Yacht Club,  among others. This is her 10th chapbook. Find her at: https://nhannawriting.wordpress.com to learn more

She will be launching the chapbook CONCEALED WEAPONS / ANIMAL SURVIVORS (2018), her third with above/ground press, after “this evidence against you,” produced as STANZAS #21 (October 1999), and dark ecologies (2017).  

Billy Mavreas is a Montréal based writer and artist who makes comics, collage, visual poetry and more. His studio and art shop, Monastiraki, is celebrating twenty years of idiosyncrasy in the Mile-End neighbourhood (1998-2108).

He will be launching his above/ground press debut, A MERCY OF SIGNS (2018).

Jennifer Kronovet on the Commonplace podcast

above/ground press author Jennifer Kronovet (right; an American currently in Germany) was interviewed recently as part of Episode #56 of Rachel Zucker's (left) podcast, Commonplace : Conversations with Poets (and Other People), and their interview is now live! Kronovet is the author of, among other titles, the chapbook CASE STUDY: WITH (2015) (which they even discuss!), copies of which are still very much available.