some author activity: Mellis, Gevirtz, Niespodziany, Dardis, Barwin + Straumsvåg,

Miranda Mellis writes on Karl Ove Knausgaard over at Hilobrow; Susan Gevirtz has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series; Benjamin Niespodziany has new work up at Afterimages; Colin Dardis has four poems up at Rochford Street Review; Hollay Ghadery podcast interviews Gary Barwin; and Dag T. Straumsvåg is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

Groundwork: The best of the third decade of above/ground press: 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023) gets a mention at LitHub!

Happy Canada Day! Yukon poet Dawn Macdonald was good enough to mention Groundwork: The best of the third decade of above/ground press: 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023) as part of the round-up "10 Canadian poetry books to expand your mind" over at LitHub! Thanks so much! You can see the original post here. And have you been seeing the reviews she's been doing via her substack? Legendary! As Macdonald writes:

Chapbooks are a vital layer of the poetry ecosystem, where fresh ideas percolate and germinate. The legendary above/ground press has produced hundreds over the past 30-some years, operating out of a basement in Ottawa.

some author activity: Kelly, mclennan, Tierney, Sandhu + Gray,

J-T Kelly has a stack of poems up at UCity Review, and is featured over at Poetry is Currency; rob mclennan has a new poem up at Scrivener Creative Review; Rebecca Hawkes, John Garaets, and Orchid Tierney talk about Big Poetry, her collection this abattoir is a college, and MFA programmes via Zoom recording; Mandy Sandhu has a poem in the "Tuesday poem" series; and I'd somehow missed that Stephanie Gray had a series of pieces posted over at Jacket2.

new from above/ground press: The Oh Oh, by Beatriz Hausner

The Oh Oh
Beatriz Hausner
$6

The Goddess is Moved to Utterance

The goddess is moved to utterance. Three plus Seven times she 
Raises the Hour to One. She Returns and loosens the clasps For 
the Hour is now at Eight a.m. on the Third day of the Eighth month. 
By the sea did you see the goddess, First Born of the Froth 
the waves rise on the Sixth month with you: I stand in Amazement. 
Three times Three is Nine and we are Returned to each other again 
changed and the parts that are earthy and dampened with penetrant 
moisture are changed to bodily Flesh. On the Fourth day of the tenth 
month Am I born again year after year reminded of life of one from 
the Two and two from the one. Four plus Zero remains four even 
as all is Changed at every recurrence of Four. The Body grows
the seX not and yes and Careless the heart. Four. Yes and 
no because Four corners do not equal Four corners at Once though 
they might. Does the age of prestidigitation equal Seven? Yes
it does. Birth Day it is as all days are days of birth even this Fifth
day of the ninth month when access is given to the boundless world.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
June 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

[Beatriz Hausner launches this title in Ottawa on August 7, 2025 as part of the above/ground press 32nd anniversary reading/launch at RedBird Live; tickets available]

cover image: “Mirage,” Susana Wald and Ludwig Zeller

Beatriz Hausner has published several poetry collections, including The Wardrobe Mistress (2003), Sew Him Up (2010), Enter the Raccoon (2012), Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (2020) and She Who Lies Above (2023), as well as many limited-edition chapbooks. Her books have been published internationally and translated into several languages, including her native Spanish, French, and most recently Greek. Hausner writes extensively about surrealism and her translations of Spanish American surrealist poets have exerted an important influence on her own writing. She has edited journals and magazines, including Open Letter, ellipse, Exile Quarterly, as well as many of the books published during her tenure as a publisher of Quattro Books. She is the editor of Someone Editions, and its current project French Letter Society. Beatriz Hausner was President of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and Chair of the Public Lending Right Commission. She lives in Toronto where she publishes The Philosophical Egg, an organ or living surrealism. Currently, with Russell Smith, she curates and runs the lecture series Soluble Fish. 

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) 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: Graham, Barwin, Ross, Mellis, mclennan + Tierney,

Lea Graham has a poem up at The Fortnightly Review; Gary Barwin has a poem up at NewPoetry; Stuart Ross has new work up at The Glacier; Miranda Mellis writes on Robert (Bob) Glück for BOMB magazine; rob mclennan has a poem up at Poem Alone, two more up at Blood+Honey, and is interviewed by Mia Funk for The Creative Process; and Orchid Tierney is hosting a free, virtual zine workshop, “pedagogies for the planthroposcene!,” on August 8 at noon as part of Sarabande Books's ⚡ZINE LUNCH!⚡ series.

Lisa de Nikolits reviews MLA Chernoff's ESTRO FLUNKY: FIELD NOTES (2023) at the Wolsak and Wynn blog,

Lisa de Nikolits was good enough to provide a first review of MLA Chernoff's ESTRO FLUNKY: FIELD NOTES (2023), as part of a listing of "great summer reads," over at the Wolsak and Wynn blog. Thanks so much! You can read her original post here. As she writes:

In case you’re new to MLA Chernoff, they’re a Toronto-based poet, performance artist, meme enthusiast and recovering academic. Their debut full-length poetry collection, [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], was released by Gordon Hill Press in 2021. MLA is also the author of several chapbooks, including delet this (Bad Books, 2018), TERSE THIRSTY (Gap Riot Press, 2019), I'M LIKE THE GREAT GRANDCHILD OF MARX & COCA-COLA (BUT NON-BINEY) (845 Press, 2022) and ESTRO FLUNKY (above/ground press, 2023).

I completely loved [SQUELCH PROCEDURES] and was delighted to read ESTRO FLUNKY. 

I delight in the workings of MLA Chernoff’s wondrous mind as they deftly juggle words, images, emotions, sights and sounds. 

Sharply insightful, citrus and crackling, ESTRO FLUNKY is a reader’s delight. Political, sexual, life-affirming, life-analyzing, brilliantly insightful and incredibly, unfathomably clever, ESTRO FLUNKY’s “pomes” are woven with the minutiae of life’s tragedies and the overwhelming challenges of life: 

“Seasonal Repressive”

    Because feelings are
    H=A=R=D
    and all games
    inevitably 
    stop
    short.

Or from “Soyjacking”

    Lusting prosaic, 
    actually: if anything. 
    If things must be hushed 
    to the extreme, this is a tomato timer, 
    a political fiction, a fear of the self, 
    keying futurity, slashing its tires.

A collection I will repeatedly return to, to plumb the depths of MLA Chernoff’s most wondrous mind. 

some author activity: Browne, Maloukis, Saklikar, Manery, Robinson, Boughn + Kemp,

a video conversation of Kate Colby and Al Filreas discussing a poem by Laynie Browne at Kelly Writers House is now online; Rose Maloukis had a poem longlisted for The 2025 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse contest, via The New Quarterly; Renée Sarojini Saklikar etc read in Vancouver on June 28th as part of Rob Manery's Some Reading; Ben Robinson has some new poems and book recommendations over at Etcetera, as does Michael Boughn; and Penn Kemp has four new poems up at The Typescript.