some author activity: mclennan, Niespodziany, Jenks, Shirley, Williams, Logan, Kemp-Gee + Young,

rob mclennan has a poem up at Pamenar Press online; the full event of Benjamin Niespodziany's Surreal-Absurd Reading Marathon, featuring a handful of above/ground press authors including Tom Jenks, Vik Shirley, Evan Williams and Nate Logan, is now up on YouTube! ; Meghan Kemp-Gee has a new poem up at Eunoia Review; and Geoffrey Young had a poem a while back on the Best American Poetry blog.

new from above/ground press: EL REY MURCIÉLAGO // THE BAT KING, by Yaxkin Melchy Ramos (translated from Spanish by Ryan Greene

EL REY MURCIÉLAGO // THE BAT KING
by Yaxkin Melchy Ramos, translated by Ryan Greene
$6

V

Bailaba con el aire
entonces mi historia era el brote de una planta

el reino vegetal de mi corazón crecía 
se incorporaba a los ríos
bailaba con el aire

V

I danced with the air
so my story was a plant sprouting

my heart’s vegetal kingdom grew
was incorporated into the rivers
danced with the air

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

first published in Spanish in 2010 by 2.0.1.2. editorial in México as part of EL SOL VERDE, the third book in EL NUEVO MUNDO

cover: Yaxkin Melchy Ramos & Ryan Greene

Yaxkin Melchy Ramos (Mexico City, 1985) is a Mexican and Peruvian-Quechua poet, translator, ecopoetics researcher, bookmaker, and artisan-activist-editor. He is the author of THE NEW WORLD, a five-part “cell-book, constellation-book, or choreography-book” which was written intermittently between 2007 and 2017. Currently he is a post-doctoral student at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, where he is researching ecopoetic currents between Japan and Latin America. Since 2017, he has been translating contemporary Japanese poetry to Spanish, and currently he runs the artisanal press Cactus del viento, which focuses on ecological, spiritual, and transpacific poetics. He also publishes on his personal blog, Flor de Amaneceres.
 
Ryan Greene writes, translates, makes, and caretakes books in "Phoenix, Arizona," the city where he grew up. For the past several years he has been working with Yaxkin Melchy to translate the first three books of THE NEW WORLD. He’s learning.

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

THE WEATHER & THE WORDS: THE SELECTED LETTERS OF JOHN NEWLOVE, 1963-2003, Edited by J.A. Weingarten

I don't usually post when above/ground press authors have books out with other presses, but I think the late Canadian poet John Newlove (1938-2003) is easily the first above/ground press author (so far) to have a published collection of letters: THE WEATHER & THE WORDS: THE SELECTED LETTERS OF JOHN NEWLOVE, 1963-2003, edited by J.A. Weingarten (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2025). You can see a write-up the editor did on the project over here at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, as well as a review Ken Norris did for the same journal. above/ground press, as you already know, produced Newlove's final two publications before he died, the chapbook THE TASMANIAN DEVIL and other poems (1999) and the single-poem broadside, "THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN" in 2001 (which were both reprinted in the anthology GROUNDSWELL, best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003), a book I do have a few copies of, by the way) as well as a twentieth anniversary edition of THE TASMANIAN DEVIL and other poems in 2019, produced with an introduction by Weingarten (which is still very much in print). Of course, Chaudiere Books (the trade publishing arm of above/ground press) also produced A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove, edited by Robert McTavish with an Afterword by Jeff Derksen, back in 2007. Copies of this are available through Invisible Publishing. Check out Derksen's Afterword over at Jacket magazine, by the way, along with a few poems by Newlove from the collection. You should pick up a copy of the letters, I think. There is something very nice about hearing John's voice again.

some author activity: O'Connor, Hall, Solomon, Browne + McCann,

Wanda O'Connor is interviewed about her garden for an article on the BBC; Phil Hall has new work up at Discordia Review; Misha Solomon has a new poem up at The New Quarterly; Laynie Browne is interviewed via podcast over at Tin House; and did you know Marcus McCann has a Medium newsletter you can follow?

The Factory Reading Series, September 28, 2025: O'Reilly, Lithgow + Ladouceur,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:

Nathanael O'Reilly (Texas)
Michael Lithgow (Ottawa)
+
Ben Ladouceur (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Doors 7pm / Reading 7:30pm
Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa

Nathanael O’Reilly’s [pictured] fourteen poetry collections include Separation Blues: Poems 1994-2024 (Flying Islands Books, 2024), Dublin Wandering (Recent Work Press, 2024), Landmarks (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024), Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Downingfield Press, 2024) and Boulevard (Downingfield Press, 2024), as well as three chapbooks with above/ground press. His work appears in journals and anthologies published in fifteen countries, including Cordite, The Honest Ulsterman, Meanjin, New World Writing Quarterly, Rabbit, Southword, Trasna and Westerly. He is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Texas at Arlington.

Michael Lithgow’s poetry, fiction and academic writing have appeared in various Canadian and international journals including TNQ, the Literary Review of Canada (LRC), Topia, The /Temz/ Review, Canadian Literature, Existere, The Antigonish Review, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, ARC and Fiddlehead. He has authored two collections of poetry Waking in the Tree House (Cormorant Books, 2012) and Who We Thought We Were As We Fell (Cormorant Books, 2021). His short story ‘The Taxidermy Lesson’ was recently published in The Brussels Review. He teaches at Athabasca University.

Ben Ladouceur has received the Thomas Morton for Fiction, the National Magazine Award (Gold) for Poetry, the Archibald Lampman Award, the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and a writer’s residency at the Al Purdy A-Frame. He is the author of the novel I Remember Lights (2025), the poetry collections Otter (2015) and Mad Long Emotion (2019), and ten chapbooks, including the above/ground press titles Lime Kiln Quay Road (2011; second printing, 2014) which was nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and The Last Man (2025), produced as part of his upcoming tenure as University of Ottawa’s new writer-in-residence. He lives in Ottawa.

report: the above/ground press 32nd anniversary reading/launch/party!

Happy anniversary! Once more, unto the breach, dear friends. I'm sure you are already aware that I recently hosted the thirty-second anniversary reading/launch/party for above/ground press over at RedBird Live in Old Ottawa South, a very good event this time around (as per usual, I might add). Do you remember my report from last year? Or the year prior? With readings and launches of new above/ground press titles by Monty Reid, Mandy Sandhu, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Jason Christie, Beatriz Hausner and Ellen Chang-Richardson, we had a wealth of above/ground press authors and others scattered throughout the audience, including Stuart Ross (who was given copies of his new above/ground press prose title at the event), Chris Johnson, Amanda Earl and Charles Earl, Christine McNair (running the door/book table), Michelle Desbarats (I've been hoping to convince a further manuscript out of her, by the way) and Chris Turnbull [above, with Christine]. I even got to meet Char Harrison, the new editorial coordinator for Ottawa's Arc Poetry Magazine. Can you believe it's almost time to be thinking of 2026 subscriptions? Gadzooks.

The first reader of the evening was Monty Reid, launching the twentieth anniversary edition of his 2005 title cuba A book [you probably already saw the big interview I conducted with him recently around the chapbook, over at the above/ground press substack], a chapbook he noted "didn't have the right star" on the first edition, so this update, this correction, was appreciated. This title is part of a long, meditative, ongoing sentence; one full-length, and a manuscript that some smart publisher should probably publish at some point. This is his seventh above/ground press title, with his debut through the press back in 2000, the small item Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (I do actually have a couple of copies kicking around the archive, somewhere), which he found curious to note: twenty-five years since the press began publishing his work. 

Mandy Sandhu followed, reading from her chapbook debut, The Temporary Place of a Placenta, as well as, I found out later, her first public reading! Not too bad, honestly. I was surprised it was her first! [I was part of St. Catharines writer/critic Gregory Betts first three public readings, whether as co-reader, host and/or organizer back in 2004, and you've seen how well he's done since]. I am curious to see where her work might go next. She recently composed this short piece for the Spotlight series, talking about her current work. Vitkauskas did record a part of Sandhu's reading, which Sandhu later put up on her Instagram.

The evening's third reader was Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, launching the chapbook The Deaf Forest of Cosmic Scaffolding, a title composed around the grief following the death of her partner, Larry Sawyer, who has a posthumous full-length Canadian debut forthcoming with Guernica Editions (which you should watch out for; I recently composed a blurb for it). Although, she did note that above/ground press did produce his Canadian debut, the chapbook A Chaise Lounge in Hell, all the way back in 2003 (I still have copies of that kicking around as well, somewhere). She ended her set with two of his poems, recorded by Sandhu (they make a good team, I think) and posted to Instagram. She even posted her own report on the event, as she and Sandhu had travelled together to Ottawa from Toronto, over at Instagram as well.

To open the second half of the evening was Ottawa poet Jason Christie, launching his ninth above/ground press title, PSA [you probably already saw the big interview I conducted with him recently, over at the above/ground press substack], with his own debut through the press back in 2004, back when he still lived in Calgary, the chapbook 8th Ave 15th St NW (which I might also might still have copies of, by the way, for anyone curious). 

The penultimate reader of the evening was Toronto poet Beatriz Hausner, launching her above/ground press debut, The Oh Oh [you probably already saw the interview I conducted with her over at Touch the Donkey, given she's in the current issue]. Honestly, as much as I enjoyed her reading, the best part about her participation in the event is that we got to hang out the evening prior, discussing literature, surrealism and other subjects (the first time I think we've properly hung out, so I appreciated that).

The final reader of the event was Ellen Chang-Richardson, launching their above/ground press debut, The Moleskin Coat, providing a stellar reading. They recently had one of the finest debut poetry titles I've read in some time, I'll have you know, the collection Blood Belies (Wolsak and Wynn, 2024). I had been a few years gently prodding at Chang-Richardson for a possible chapbook submission, and they even wrote this particular title with the press in mind! Quite a compliment, I think. A very cool thing.

Thank you to everyone who came out! What should I do for next year? I should probably have taken more photos during the event, of course. Or perhaps even better photos?
 

new from above/ground press: POEMS I DIDN’T WRITE, by kevin mcpherson eckhoff

POEMS I DIDN’T WRITE
kevin mcpherson eckhoff
$6

THE LEAST OFFENSIVE POEM

welcome nice pills yes interesting pillar gadzooks toasty pillows throw bland marshmallow then happy ukuleles sunshine blasts mellow underpants puppy pudding oh wow fluffy toes and holy moly banana eh you're kidding sorry of course no really flake you monkey feather puce jubilation lull picnic snack blossom breeze pool dorsal to water drumlin pingo roof zigzag there adjective peace geranium beam approved transom colander tousled cilantro door good block together the larch loam sky great tolerance shoot heck sonder word personable tune parsley cuddles innocuous cookie creamy aardvark bosom butter kitten bum tuffet honey molecule tingle pickle pie pewp bewbz fudge slab butterfly dink vajayjay custard poptart ummmm gee ok as you wish also love neat toodles

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

kevin mcpherson eckhoff recently became friends with Peter and Melody Anderson, and his life is objectively better for it. His latest full-length book is called The Pain Itself, and it really is. In 2022, he politely asked Maria Bamford to contribute one word to his album, Joke Killed, and she did: how?! He is currently trying to dry off Lavender, a sweet and gentle La Mancha. Jake Kennedy is his forever best friend. Bye for now!

This is eckhoff's fourth above/ground press title, after dissections from their biography (2012), faux foe (2018) and dieting Herb Wit (2020).

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