new from above/ground press: Bits and Bobs, by Ryan Stearne

Bits and Bobs
two stories by Ryan Stearne
$5

     The kitchen is not a large kitchen, but neither is it a small one. Margaret, or Midge as Harold calls her, always thought it was the perfect size. She thinks this is especially so considering it’s just the two of them, as it has been for the thirty years they’ve owned the house. They bought 4515 Coronation Drive from a couple of elderly empty-nesters who after watching their children fly away had also decided it time to move south. Immediately, Margaret and Harold decided to make the home their own, wallpapering the upper kitchen cupboard doors with a corn print paper that screamed ‘corn is eaten here!’ Then, they painted the lower cupboard doors, all the cupboard frames, walls, and ceiling a periwinkle blue. The shade clashes horrendously with the print, but Margaret likes it and Harold doesn’t mind. In the center of the room is a small steel-edged laminate table that has no opinion of corn, one way or the other.
          ("Vienna Sausage")

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2023
as the nineteenth title in above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Ryan Stearne is a PhD student in English Literature with a focus on prose fiction at the University of Calgary. “Attachments” and “Vienna Sausage” are a part of a cycle of short stories centered on how we connect or disconnect with our bodies and situated in Alberta. Ryan can be reached at RyanStearneWrites@gmail.com.

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

some author activity: Deutch, Arnott, Betts, mclennan, Christakos, Robinson, Jirgens + Smith,

Amanda Deutch has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; Joanne Arnott has been named a "Life Member" of The League of Canadian Poets; Gregory Betts has new work and a short write-up on NFTs online at Rattle; rob mclennan has new work in horseshoe journal here and here, as well as a brand-new substack post from "Lecture for an Empty Room"; and Margaret Christakos and Ben Robinson both have new work in Hamilton Arts & Letters, which also includes a conversation between Karl Jirgens and Steven Ross Smith on their ongoing fictions.

new from above/ground press: errand : towards, by Brad Vogler

errand : towards
Brad Vogler
$5

tatter trail of borrowed words
wilderness an easier thief makes

yours are hands of helping
poised perching lurch of love

I wanted to fill my edges with you
become the sleeper you secret with

Note 
The poems in errand : towards involve two source texts, Susan Howe's Souls of the Labadie Tract and Ronald Johnson’s Radi os. The process began by reading corresponding pages of each text, and choosing a word/words from each. I would write the word(s) down in my notebook making two columns of text. After working my way through the books, I took the words and started assembling fragments/poems from the text gathered. As I was working I ended up adding words, lines of my own, and a couple of poems/pieces were written during the process of assembling from the original texts.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Brad Vogler latest project is A Viewing Space, a platform created for various place/time investigations. The first publication launched with Quietly Between, a collaborative book of poetry and photography. He’s the author of my radius, a small stone (Spuyten Duyvil), and i know that this ritual (Lute & Cleat). The full-length version of errand is forthcoming in the spring of 2024 from Sonorous Anchorite. He works with Delete Press, Posit, and is the editor/designer of Opon and A Viewing Space.

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

pre-order now available! groundwork: The best of the third decade of above/ground press: 2013–2023

Celebrating thirty years of continuous activity with well over twelve hundred publications to date, groundwork celebrates the third decade of rob mclennan’s Ottawa-based above/ground press, publisher of lyric, innovative, and experimental writing across a wealth of chapbooks, broadsides and multiple simultaneous journals, including Touch the Donkey, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T [a journal of guest editors]. Following on the heels of the anthologies GROUNDSWELL, best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003) and Ground Rules: the Best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013 (Chaudiere Books, 2013), groundwork pushes against the short-lived and the ephemeral of small and micro press publishing. Firmly situated in his home base of Ottawa, above/ground press revels in the possibility of expansive conversations between writers, writing and readership, and groundwork works to acknowledge mclennan’s deep and ongoing dedication to the work of hundreds of contemporary writers across North America and beyond. See link here to pre-order!

Contributors:

Jordan Abel
Jennifer Baker
Gregory Betts
Alice Burdick
Allison Cardon
Kimberly Campanello
Norma Cole
Julia Drescher
Kristjana Gunnars
Natalie Hanna
Brenda Iijima
Emily Izsak
N.W. Lea
damian lopes
Natalie Lyalin
Rob Manery
rob mclennan
Christine McNair
Allyson Paty
Julia Polyck-O’Neill
Shazia Hafiz Ramji
Stuart Ross
Kate Siklosi
George Stanley
Hugh Thomas
Chris Turnbull

new from above/ground press: Simple Location, by Andrew Gorin

Simple Location
Andrew Gorin
$5

Skunks Eat Leaves

Skunks eat leaves, peaceably in our garden
As if this sibilance mattered to them
Ferns confirm a photorealistic atmosphere
Friends go in a hose to drink

When you expect it, there it is
The cup knows the hand like a question
Creases time in the static, turning air
Into vacuoles of discomfiture
Do not adjust your lawn protocol

Skunks eat leaves, mean art hogs
Hogs mean art, art eats
Capital. I have used up all
Of my words for accumulation

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Andrew Gorin teaches in the departments of Environmental Studies and Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. He is the author of Someone Like You (Gauss PDF, 2017), and the creator and co-editor of the collaborative writing project Executive Orders (The Operating System and Organism for Poetic Research, 2017-ongoing).

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

some author activity: Carisse, Sparling + Pirie,

Russell Carisse has a new poem up in the Tuesday poem series; Ken Sparling displays his handmade books at the Coach House Books website; and Pearl Pirie posted a report on the pre-small press fair reading the other night, as well as receiving her festschrift!

The Factory Reading Series: Kevin Spenst’s grand tour! w Conyer Clayton + rob mclennan,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:

readings and chapbook launches by:

Kevin Spenst (Vancouver)
Conyer Clayton (Ottawa)
+
rob mclennan (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Doors 7pm / Reading 730pm
Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry
837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,

Kevin Spenst (he/him) [pictured] is the author of Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, and Hearts Amok: a Memoir in Verse (all with Anvil Press), and over a dozen chapbooks including Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press), Upend (Frog Hollow Press) and an upcoming holm with the Alfred Gustav Press. His most recent writing has appeared in the anthologies Event 50: Collected Notes on Writing and Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing. His book launch during the pandemic was featured in a book about creative practices: The Creative Instigator’s Handbook. He teaches creative writing at Vancouver Community College and Simon Fraser University and he lives in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory.

Conyer Clayton is an award-winning writer, editor, and musician whose multi-genre work often explores grief, disability, the climate crisis, and gender-based violence through a surrealist lens. They are the author of But the sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves. (Finalist for the Pat Lowther Award and Raymond Souster Award), We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (Winner of the 2021 Ottawa Book Award), and many solo and collaborative chapbooks. They are the Nonfiction Editor for untethered magazine, a Poetry Editor for Augur, and a member of VII; an Ottawa-based poetry collective.

The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, rob mclennan’s most recent titles include the poetry collections the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022) and World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), the chapbook The Alta Vista Improvements (above/ground press, 2023), and a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com