new from above/ground press: TULIP IS AN AXE, by Gary Barwin

TULIP 
IS 
AN AXE
Gary Barwin
$6

in the fable, there was a sad window
and a sad chair
I threw the chair through the window
and climbed out


            §


sheep was a bird
and bird was a leaf
everyone was tulips
even the gun

we were forced to consider
what we didn’t want to consider


            §


there once was a tulip
it was like a bomb but more gentle
boom, it went in the night
boom, it went at dawn

its red was blood if blood
didn’t mean dying

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

Gary Barwin is a writer, musician and multimedia artist and the author of 35 books including Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction 2024-1984. His most recent novel, The Comedian’s Book of the Dead will be published by Book*Hug in 2026. He lives in Hamilton. garybarwin.com

This is Barwins’s ninth above/ground press chapbook, after “SYNONYMS FOR FISH,” STANZAS #26 (March, 2001), Seedpod, Microfiche (2013), Dust of the Wren: poems and translations (2019), the collaborative PLEASURE BRISTLES (with Alice Burdick; 2018), gravitynipplemilk anthroposcenesters (with Tom Prime; 2018) and SOME LEAVES (with rob mclennan, 2020), and SAYING “BOY” IN A WILDERNESS OF SONG (2021) and MY STRUGGLE WITH NOUNS (2024). He is also one of the collaborators in Kevin Spenst's Ghosted Under the Christmas Tree (2025).

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: mclennan, Iijima, Boyle, Spinosa + Jenks,

rob mclennan and Brenda Iijima have new work in Volume 6 of Work and Days; Frances Boyle has a new poem up at Bywords.ca; Dani Spinosa has a poem up in the "Tuesday poem" series; Tom Jenks also has new work in the "Tuesday poem" series; and rob mclennan is interviewed by Katie Ebbitt for Cleveland Review of Books, and by Jamie Tennant over at his clever podcast.

new from above/ground press: Dark Matter, by Rosío Céron; translated/etranslated by Sonja Greckol

Dark Matter 
—Sonja Greckol translation

Materia Oscura 
—Rosío Céron 

Dark Matter – Diverted
—Sonja Greckol etranstranslation
$6

1. 

East wind and sistrum. Shrill song of the nuthatch. Aching brow announces the evanescent gesture to the world. Trills and somersaults. One who looks at the fire of the first star, its dense depth. One who looks. Turns or attends. The secret vein of the wind –tremor of air its sign– dances before the eyes.

_________________________

  
Levante y sistro. Agudo canto del herrerillo. Adoloridas sienes anuncian al mundo el gesto evanescente. Trinos y volteretas. El que mira el fuego de la primera estrella, su espesura de fondo. El que mira. Giro o concurrencia. La vena secreta del viento –su señal de temblor de aire– danza frente a los ojos.

_________________________
  
The blue tit’s soaring mundo gestures temple trill cartwheel ring fail density or destiny sequencing secret rotation levante signal trembling air dance in eyes veining their first star

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

cover image by Sharon Harris

Rocío Cerón (Mexico City), poet and artist, investigates forms of construction of memory, its hesitations, the suspensions of meanings (to create other meanings) and displacement as territories clash to create transmedia pieces. She has released the sound poetry albums MIIUNI (2022), Sonic Bubbles (2020) and published the poetry books Simultáneo sucesivo (Eolas Ediciones, 2022), Divisible Corpóreo (Tresnubes ediciones-UANL, 2022), Spectio (Tresnubes ediciones-UANL 2019), Materia oscura (Parentalia Ediciones, 2018), Borealis (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2016), Nudo vortex (Edición Proyecto Literal México, 2015), Diorama  4 editions: (UANL - Tabasco 189 México, 2012), (Diaz Grey Editores, NY Spanish/English 2103), (Amargord Ediciones, Madrid 2013), (Phoneme Media, Español e Inglés, 2014), Basalto (Editorial Casa Vacía, 2022) among others. Diorama was translated by Anna Rosenwong and won the 2025 Best Translated Book Award from the University of Rochester (United States). She has also been awarded with the 2000 Gilberto Owen National Literature Prize (Mexico) and the 2005 See America Travel Award (United States). Her poems have been translated into English and various European languages. Pieces of hers have been exhibited at international venues in Paris, London, Mexico, Berlin, and Stockholm. Cerón performs and lectures extensively internationally and her poems have been translated into multiple languages. 

Sonja Greckol (Tkaronto/Toronto Canada) has published No Hay Linea En EL Tiempo/No Line In Time translated by Eduardo Padilla (manofalsa editores, 2025), Monitoring Station (University of Alberta Press – Robert Kroetsch Series, 2023), No Line In Time (Tightrope, 2018), Skein of Days (Pedlar Press, 2014), and Gravity Matters (Inanna Press, 2008). Her long poem 'No Line In Time' won the 2017 Briar Patch Poetry Contest and No Line In Time was listed for the League of Canadian Poets Raymond P Souster Award in 2019. Monitoring Station was listed for the Book Publishers Association of Alberta Robert Kroetsch Prize (2024). Asymptote (Jan 2025) published an excerpt of her translation of Rocío Cerón’s Trances and La Presa (Spring 2017) published her e-transtranslation ‘Dark Matter - Diverted’ of Rocío Cerón’s ‘Materia Oscura’. Greckol edits poetry for Women and Environments International. 

'Dark Matter' was prepared in Erín Moure's translation workshop (2023-2025) with Lee Gould, Roman Ivashkiv, and Jaclyn Piudik who translated Spanish, Ukrainian and French poetry into English. 

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: Banks, Shirley, Unrau, Betts, Barwin + Carpenter,

Chris Banks offers his "best Canadian poetry books of 2025" list, via The Woodlot; Vik Shirley has a new poem up at Burning House Press; Melanie Dennis Unrau is included in the Canadian Poets Series via Peripety and/or Tronies; Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts and Lillian Allen are interviewed on their Muttertongue collaborative projects by Hollay Ghadery for the New Books Network podcast; and J.R. Carpenter has two poems online at The Manchester Review.

new from above/ground press: Heat Lamp, by Pearl Pirie

Heat Lamp
Pearl Pirie
$6

(cinematic)

i          candle
b         ladle 

c         overturned soup
*         gunshot 





D         half moon        
4          sailboat 
≈          uncaring ocean

H         ladder 
v  v      vampire swimming 
o          life saver thrown 

∞         years left for crew learning 

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

Pearl Pirie is an Ottawa-area, Quebec writer. She has been lucky enough to have had four poetry collections published, most recently footlights (Radiant Press, 2020). A past-president of KaDo, an Ottawa-area haiku and tanka group, she is the coordinator of the Betty Drevniok Award for haiku and has been the publisher of phafours press since 2007. Find her at Patreon and at www,pearlpirie.com This book sprung from the forehead of Gary Barwin's anus porcupine eyebrow.

This is Pirie’s seventh chapbook with above/ground press, after the oath in the boathouse (2008), vertigoheel for the dilly (2014), today’s woods (2014), sex in sevens (2016), Eldon, letters (2019) and Rushing Dusk (2024). Report from the Pirie Society, Vol. 1 No. 1, appeared in 2023.

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: fitzpatrick, Kemp, mclennan, Beaulieu, Saklikar, Collis + Manery,

the Calgary Guardian offers "a day in the life" of poet ryan fitzpatrick; Penn Kemp has new work up at Public Reverie; rob mclennan is interviewed at On Creative Writing, and also has some new work up at Public Reverie; Derek Beaulieu once again offers his annual list of Most Engaging Books; and the audio of Renée Sarojini Saklikar’s Vancouver chapbook launch, hosted by Stephen Collis with readings by Stephen Collis, Annie Lafleur (read by Stephen Collis), Rob Manery, Renee Rodin, Marguerite Pigeon, and Renée Sarojini Saklikar at People’s Co-op Bookstore on Dec. 6, 2025, is now online via Rob Manery.

new from above/ground press: Sadie, by Jill Stengel

Sadie
Jill Stengel
$6

Sadie. She said let me tell you. Another time she did.

Sadie said let me tell you about that time. It was a time it was. A time indeed.

The skirts were a different length that time, and the shoes. You should have seen the shoes.

A ghost in the story. A ghost.

The man he was different. There is always a man who is different. Whether he is different.

Another time she said. And tea.

Sigh. She moved her hand across her forehead. Sigh. To her cheek. She rested her head upon her hand. Stared unblinking. A long time.

Sometimes Sadie said it was hard to tell. Sometimes Sadie said. Sometimes.

In the evening Sadie received flowers.

In the evening Sadie sat at a table. Sat in a chair. Sat in another room.

Sadie would stroll. An elbow cupped. Sometimes.

A profile in relief. The sun and no clouding. Tree leaves and branches. Night and a star. Stars.

Sadie she said Sadie.

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

This is poet and publisher Jill Stengel’s 14th book, 13 of which are chapbooks. Jill is an ardent admirer of the chapbook form. Her a+bend press has released more than 40 chapbook titles, along with a handful of issues of a journal, as well as a small number of full-length books. Jill’s press has published work by some of her country’s foremost experimental women poets, and she continues to promote voices of experimental writers through collaborations, consulting, and editing. Jill is happiest when playing with words. She lives in Davis, California.

This is Jill Stengel’s second title through above/ground press, after tether (2013).

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