new from above/ground press: camera obscura, by Claudia Coutu Radmore

camera obscura
Claudia Coutu Radmore
$5

chilled molecules their storage skills

what the body feels being every bit as significant as what the mind thinks and inextricably intertwined nevertheless since time is an illusion and lunch time doubly so when you start by saying it was the day my grandmother exploded it’s not beyond belief that the milky way harbours celestial objects that accelerate particles of at least a million billion electron volts and though predictably some may be jumping over the moon other cows are natural pessimists just check the baboon spider atlas it’s effortless thinking; what the body feels every bit as significant savour the leafy shade of life boulevard take time to watch mind surfers floating carelessly along two feet above the waves register the possibility of exploding air forming seas on alien planets oh that it may rain diamonds but be aware that with some six  to nine metres of displacement the San Andreas fault is long overdue for a huge quake still when you know chilled molecules can store your whole life’s experience in a half inch cube and the effect that quantum computers have on the blockchain of cryptocurrencies do you need to prove who you are the air between us poignantly turbid as we create each other through relationships what the body feels so significant and inextricably intertwined with what the mind thinks like what are birds for what is flying for what is lying for what is dying for still those skilled storage  bits the door inside the heart of gold thanks you for  making a  simple  door very happy

 
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Claudia Coutu Radmore’s a moment or two/ without remembering and Your Hands Discover Me/ Tes mains me découvrent, were followed by Accidentals, which won Canada’s bpNichol Chapbook Award in 2011.  Often working in Japanese forms, the business of isness, a haiku collection, and fish spine picked clean, a tanka collection, were published by Ottawa’s  Éditions des petits nuages in March, 2018. Her work has been published often in Canadian poetry journals. The chapbook, On Fogo was published by Alfred Gustav Press, Vancouver, summer 2018. She is the President of Haiku Canada. See her recent my (small press) writing day entry here.

[Claudia Coutu Radmore launches camera obscura in Ottawa as part of the short forms showcase at this year's VERSeFest, alongside Cameron Anstee, Mike Montreuil and Lenard Moore on March 31, 2019]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: Words Are What You Get / You Do It For Real, poems and prose poems, by Stephanie Gray

Words Are What You Get / You Do It For Real
poems and prose poems
Stephanie Gray
$5

“I couldn’t think of what to say / words just vanished in a haze”  … Thompson Twins

Words are what you get

That’s what you get for wanting time to stand still. It’s like the mafia – even if you’re out, you’re in. They don’t do nothing. We are in the red every single month. There is a muscle memory to it. Don’t you remember? It’s when your mind breaks but your muscles don’t. Even if they’re sore you don’t notice like when the sky is sort of blue and sort of white, now that you look at it, but you’re not. You’re just noticing. And just noticing is not the same as knowing. And just knowing is not the same as feeling. And just feeling is not the same as realizing. And just realizing is not the same as understanding. And just understanding is not the same as really getting it. And just really getting it is not the same as living it. And just living it is not the same as having been through it. And just having been through it is not the same as you were there. And just that you were there doesn’t mean you really were. And just thinking you were really there doesn’t mean we think of you any differently. And because we don’t think of you any differently, you don’t matter. And because you don’t matter, we don’t listen to you. And because we don’t listen to you, you are annoyed. And because you are annoyed, you ignore us. And because you ignore us, we disappear.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Stephanie Gray is Stephanie Gray is the author of five poetry collections including two books, Shorthand and Electric Language Stars (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2015) and Heart Stoner Bingo (Straw Gate Books, 2007), and four chapbooks including A Country Road Going Back in Your Direction (Argos Books, 2015); Place Your Orders Now! (Belladonna, 2014) and I Thought You Said It Was Sound /How Does That Sound? (PPYYL, 2012). Her poetry publications include Brooklyn Rail, Boog City, EOAGH, The Recluse, and she often reads poetic texts live with her films, performing at the Poetry Project and Segue series, among others. Her critical work on poetics has been published in Jacket2, Reconstruction, Futurepost, and Coldfront. Her super 8 films have screened internationally at fests such as Oberhausen, Viennale and venues such as San Francisco Cinematheque, Microscope Gallery, and a retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.

This is Gray's second above/ground press title, after Go Under The Surface (2018).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Pirie, Prevost, Robinson, Dyckman, Coulton, Smallfield, Wilkinson + Banu,

there is new collaborative work in the tenth issue of where is the river by above/ground press authors Pearl Pirie and Roland Prevost, Elizabeth Robinson and Susanne Dyckman, and Valerie Coulton and Edward Smallfield; Joshua Marie Wilkinson has a poem online via the Poetry Foundation; and forthcoming author Simina Banu has an essay in the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

new from above/ground press: B V A, by Billy Mavreas

B V A
Billy Mavreas
$4

 

NOTES

This series of constrained concrete poems was set in motion by a stack of salvaged provincial election stickers, each 3 x 7 inch sticker consisting only of the capital letters B V A printed green on light cream paper.

I have hand torn one sticker and reassembled the parts to compose one poem.

27 unique poems complete the series, this chapbook comprises a selection of these.

Very special thanks to PVR for saving what others would readily throw away.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Billy Mavreas is a Montreal based artist and writer. His work has appeared in Ascent, Asemic, bOING bOING, Braincell, Carousel, Comics Journal, filling Station, Fish Piss, Five Million Copies, fhole, F.O.D., Four Minutes to Midnight, Hopital Brut, Iron Feather Journal, Malefact, OL, Salon, The Bleed, Transmog, Queen Street Quarterly, Union Shop Bluff, Xerolage and many more.

This is Billy Mavreas’ second above/ground press title, after A MERCY OF SIGNS (2018).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: A Holiday for Molecules, by Alice Burdick

A Holiday for Molecules
Alice Burdick
$5

Apple blossom time

Beneath the apple blossoms, people

stand and enjoy falling light and colour.

Also there’s a smell, a scent of future nasal

light tunnels, all open in beams of sound.

It’s a delusion or illusion of opal nausea.

We’ll put it on the bill

of the pecking sandpiper,  a groupie

in the flight patterns of drifting dunes.

Tipping the produce in big fields -

ecstatic ents with beautiful tresses.

I own this road - I won it in a contest.

You don’t get it. Nothing is familiar,

but I get it. I get it right in the ass of light

fixtures. Future perfect lack of conversation.

The one thing I ask for is words.

I just want those fucking words.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover image by the author

Alice Burdick is the author of four full-length poetry collections, Simple Master, Flutter, Holler, and Book of Short Sentences. Deportment, a book of selected poems, came out in November 2018 from Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Her work has also appeared in many chapbooks, broadsides, magazines, journals, and anthologies. She has been a judge for various awards, including the bpNichol Chapbook Award and the Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize. She also visits high school English classes as a “Poet In Your Class” through Poetry in Voice/les Voix de la Poésie. She co-owns an independent bookstore in Lunenburg called Lexicon Books.

This is Burdick’s second above/ground press title, after the collaborative PLEASURE BRISTLES (with Gary Barwin, 2018). A French translation of PLEASURE BRISTLES, by Canadian translator Simon Brown, is scheduled to appear later this year with Les Éditions Vanloo, France.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

New Orleans Poetry Festival 2019: Hyland, Kaminski, Robinson, Rosenthal, Smith, Sweeney + Tate,

above/ground press authors MC Hyland, Megan Kaminski, Elizabeth Robinson, Sarah Rosenthal, Jessica Smith, Heather Sweeney and Bronwen Tate (as well as a whole slew of other writers) participate in the 2019 New Orleans Poetry Festival and Small Press Fair, which will be held from April 18-21, 2019. I might not be able to attend, but you should totally go! Check out the full schedule here.

some author activity: Schmaltz, Pirie, Hajnoczky, Radmore + Waldrop,

Eric Schmaltz is posting a series of 'commentaries' over at Jacket2; Pearl Pirie has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day, as does Helen Hajnoczky, Claudia Coutu Radmore has a poem in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; and Rosmarie Waldrop has a poem up at Poets.org.