some author activity: Eleftherion, Cooley, Pirie, Bowering + Earl,

Melissa Eleftherion has new work up at Vallejo Poetry Society; Dennis Cooley is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Pearl Pirie is interviewed at the Chaudiere Books blog; George Bowering is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Amanda Earl has a visual poem in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets.

new from above/ground press: Man Agar, by Baron Rocco Fleetcrest-Seacobs

Man Agar
Baron Rocco Fleetcrest-Seacobs
$5

Untitled
For rob mclennan, March 14, 2019.

Clan: born men
Be n' morn clan,
Carbon ln, men
Mrn bone, clan
Mn born clean
Brnn coal, men
Mrn bone, clan
Clamber onnn,
Cln-born, amen.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Baron Rocco Fleetcrest-Seacobs, pseudonymously known by some (for sultry and rather unseemly reasons that we dare not delve into here too deeply, because this is a family-friendly establishment) as Rocco Fenestra, which translates roughly as “Rock Window” in Romanian, is an experimental poet living both aboard and abroad. His poetry has, he claims, been longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Review of Canada, The Malahat Review, Canadian Literature, The Capilano Review, filling Station, ditch, and others, although we can find no public record of these accusations. He portends his recent chapbooks to include aeiou (No Press 2018), uoiea (above/ground press 2019), teksker (Simulacrum Press 2019) and no mỡ, no mo, no mò (nOIR:Z 2020), although hard evidence of these charges are scant and wanting. He also alleges to have leaflets, booklets and other poetic ephemera out through The Blasted Tree, Penteract Press, and Spacecraft Press, but again, he has been known to lie under oath on multiple occasions where dignified and upstanding witnesses, notaries and testimoniants were present. His work has been simultaneously prognosticated and threatened, by him and him alone, to will have had been published both within Canada and internationally, and to have eventually been found to have been anthologized in Concrete and Constraint (Penteract Press 2018) and Science Poems (Penteract Press 2020), but again, he is not to be trusted, nor admitted, nor indulged or by any means whatsoever entertained, and if you see him you are cordially advised that he has arms, is strangerous, and should not to be approached under any circumstances, and we urge you with sincerest bestwishes and regards to report the time, place and proximal whathaveyous under which you witnessed his garish and brazen presence to the toll-free hotline (212) 756-7032.

This is Fleetcrest-Seacobs’ first above/ground press chapbook, after uoiea (2019) and Bark Ode (2020).

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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

new from above/ground press: THE DEER HAVENS, by Geoffrey Olsen

THE DEER HAVENS
Geoffrey Olsen
$5

the fur is dream and gelatinous
I can’t speak or present can’t speak
life within mouth of leaves
dream mouth

arrayed around the bleak opening
I do not have ownership over blade and all the
things of a blade on the edge of
climactic or feral

and the edge reproducing the dream in
a now of disaster songs
after songs and I’m also
the cat and the imbued indirect
that waits, waiting

unordered, unwindowed

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover image: Brenda Iijima

Geoffrey Olsen is a poet living in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of the chapbooks End Notebook and Not of Distends : Address Panicked. Recent poems are published in Deluge, Entropy, Vestiges and The Pi Review. His chapbook, Marrow, is forthcoming from These Signals.

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 rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

RM Vaughan (1965-2020)

There have been a number of reminiscences to already appear for RM Vaughan, from my own obituary to pieces by Nathaniel G. Moore in the Toronto Star, Alana Wilcox via the Coach House site and Stuart Ross at his blog. above/ground press was fortunate to publish Richard in a handful of places, from an issue of STANZAS, in Missing Jacket, a "poem" broadside and a chapbook, starting in 1996. Condolences to his family, and his extensive network of friends, publishers and admirers. He was the loveliest and most generous of people. We shall miss him.

some author activity: Braune, Brenza, Barwin, Etherin, Boyle + Rogal,

Sean Braune is interviewed over at Talking about strawberries all of the time, as is forthcoming author Andrew Brenza, where Gary Barwin also has some visual poems; Gary Barwin also writes on grant writing as part of his writer-in-residence blog via Sheridan College; Anthony Etherin has two new poems up at The Pi Review; Frances Boyle has three new poems up at Floodlight Editions; and Stan Rogal has a new poem up at Train : a poetry journal.

Tom Sandborn reviews George Stanley's Love Is Not an Algorithm (2020) in the Vancouver Sun

Tom Sandborn was good enough to provide the first review of Vancouver poet George Stanley's Love Is Not an Algorithm (2020) over at the Vancouver Sun. Thanks so much! And of course, you can see the full article here.

Do you love lively language and rigorous thought? Try long-time Vancouver poet George Stanley, a too-little-known writer who can be a delightful discovery

Love is Not an Algorithm
By George Stanley, Above/Ground Press (Ottawa, 2020)

$5 | 24pp.

George Stanley is one of Vancouver’s best-kept secrets.

For anyone who loves shapely language and rigorous thought, this too-little-known writer can be a delightful discovery. Stanley, an Irish-American poet from San Francisco, has been living and writing in B.C. since 1971, and much of his remarkable poetry reflects his Canadian experiences.

He writes in “Montmartre” that “I started out in Montmartre/in the bars and cafes. I drank/With Manet and Baudelaire/Now I drink at the Fringe Café/on West Broadway, in Vancouver. I’m one of the ‘regulars’.”

And he has indeed been a regular in the world of poetry for most of his adult life, and certainly all of his time in Canada, publishing collections, chapbooks and stand-alone poems. (Full disclosure: I have known Stanley since he arrived in Vancouver in the ’70s. I have also reviewed earlier volumes of his poetry, including a review in 2018 of Some End/West Broadway.)

Despite creating an impressive body of work over his Canadian decades, Stanley has never achieved the commercial success or notoriety that can come, even in these post-poetry years, to more emotionally and intellectually accessible writers, either in his home country or here in Canada.

Because Stanley seems to have read and digested almost everything ever published, his work is intellectually dense; and yet his keen-eyed observations of the fine grain particulars of his city and his mind invite the reader in and reward careful attention. His book-length Vancouver: A Poem (2008) and his jointly authored (with George Bowering in 2018) Some End/West Broadway are both master classes in poetic observation, reflection and distillation. A George Stanley poem can deliver the potent kick and long lasting after-pleasure of a glass of single-malt scotch.

While Stanley is not likely to ever be a mass-market poet, he has been recognized by the Poetry Society of America with that body’s Shelley Award in 2006, and in 2011

The Capilano Review devoted an entire issue to printing both his original work and poems and essays of appreciation from many powerful voices within the world of current poetry. Clearly, he is a poet’s poet.

But don’t let that scare you off. Love is Not an Algorithm will reward any careful reader with its lyrical reflections on love, desire, the beautiful, the mind and the city.

Highly recommended.

some author activity: Smallfield, Coulton, Downs, Hunter, Sikkema + Earl,

; Edward Smallfield has some new poems up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as do Valerie Coulton and Buck Downs and Carrie Hunter and Michael Sikkema; Amanda Earl has a new poem up at The Babel Tower Notice Board, and is interviewed over at Cannot Predict Now.