some author activity: Smith, Anstee, Butler, Ferguson, Abel + Earl,

Jessica Smith has some new poems up at Tarpaulin Sky; Cameron Anstee has a new poem up as part of the dusie "Tuesday poem" series; Jenna Butler has won the CV2 2-Day Poem Contest for her piece "Ella & Marilyn at the Mocambo"; Jesse Patrick Ferguson has two new poems over at The Mackinac; Jordan Abel gets an "author spotlight" over at Jessica Kluthe's blog; and, in case you didn't see it, Amanda Earl wrote a pre-reading post in anticipation of tonight's reading with Jessica Smith and Marilyn Irwin as part of The Factory Reading Series.

new from above/ground press: OTHERWISE SMOOTH, by Rosmarie Waldrop

OTHERWISE SMOOTH
Rosmarie Waldrop
$4

How daily my life. How tiny the impurities around which words might accrue. Worlds. Whorls. Pearls? Once I stood in a town where nothing was left unchanged but the clouds driven from the east. Now I learn from the sea. Always the same, always different, brackish body, uncertain. The unusual I hold at bay by taking pictures. To let it accrue to memory without having to experience it? Do we live this way, walking, as if we could, on thin air? But the sycamore stands in the yard all day and all night. And now, though still lifeless in appearance, quickens. Roots gripping farther down.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2013
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Rosmarie Waldrop’s recent poetry books are Driven to Abstraction, Curves to the Apple, Blindsight (New Directions), Splitting Images (Zasterle), and Love, Like Pronouns (Omnidawn). Her Collected Essays, Dissonance (if you are interested), was published by University of Alabama Press in 2005.

Two novels, The Hanky of Pippin's Daughter and A Form/of Taking/It All are available in one paperback (Northwestern UP, 2001).  

She has translated 14 volumes of Edmond Jabés’s work (her memoir, Lavish Absence: Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabés, is out from Wesleyan UP) as well as books by Emmanuel Hocquard, Jacques Roubaud, and, from the German, Friederike Mayröcker, Elke Erb, Oskar Pastior, Gerhard Rühm, Ulf Stolterfoht.

She lives in Providence, RI. where she co-edits Burning Deck books with Keith Waldrop.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

The FREE VERSE Anthology launch, July 9, 1993

Alexander Monker was good enough to scan this flyer he found recently, for the launch of the first-ever above/ground press publication, The FREE VERSE ANTHOLOGY (1993), with poems by Sylvia Adams, Matthew Barlow, Henry Beissel, George Bowering, Thea Bowering, Agnes Bright, Brian Burke, Terry Ann Carter, Richard Carter, David Collins, Frank J. Cormier, Michael Dennis, Heather Ferguson, Marty Flomen, Ellen Field, Mark Frutkin, Bronwen Geddes, Gary Geddes, Bruce Harding, James Hewitt-White, jimmy s.g. ioannidis, Doug Ivison, Clare Latremouille, Christopher Levenson, Joy Hewitt Mann, Karen Massey, Rob McLennan, Karen Moffat, Alexander Monker, Susan Musgrave, Natalie Neill, Heather Tisdale-Nisbet, Diana Nobrega, Rose Oksaboose, Christopher Pollard, Kimcha Rajkumar, Stan Rogal, Jamie Russell, Dawn Sims, Christopher Sorr and Chris Wind.

Twenty years ago, tonight. Where does all the time go?

Ryan Pratt reviews recent titles by Jason Christie and Jessica Smith,

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Jason Christie's Government (2013) and Jessica Smith's MNEMOTECHNICS (2013) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

And don't forget, Jessica does her first reading in Ottawa this coming Saturday night, as part of The Factory Reading Series!

kevin mcpherson eckhoff launches Our Teeth: a community press,

above/ground press author kevin mcpherson eckhoff has launched a brand-new publishing enterprise! As he writes on the site: "In 2007, kevin mcpherson eckhoff began a small press called by the skin of me teeth, which published approximately 14 chapbooks & scat over 3 years. After a year of quiet, the press is ready to resurface as Our Teeth: a community publishing experiment where anyone can create books, prints, sculptures, et cetera using the resources at Not Really, including a tabletop letterpress, label-makers, old board games, recycled books and many other worded objects!

Our Teeth is a community press! What does that mean? You tell me!"

some author activity: Smith, Blouin, McElroy, mclennan, beaulieu + Poe,

Jessica Smith has some poems up in the first issue of N/A; co-author Michael Blouin's "On process" essay is the fourth piece in the ongoing "On writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Gil McElroy and rob mclennan have new essays in the seventh issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics; derek beaulieu gets some love from Eric Schmaltz over at Lemonhhound; and Deborah Poe's reading at Ivy Writers Paris, May, 2013 has been posted (with a report) up at YouTube.

The Factory Reading Series presents: Jessica Smith, Amanda Earl + Marilyn Irwin, Saturday July 13, 2013

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:

Jessica Smith (Birmingham AL)
Amanda Earl (Ottawa)
+ Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, July 13, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Jessica Smith [pictured above; drawing by Alixandria Bamford], Founding Editor of Foursquare and name magazines, serves as the Librarian for Indian Springs School, where she runs its Visiting Writers Series. She is the author of numerous chapbooks, most recently mnemotechnics (above/ground press 2013), and one full-length collection, Organic Furniture Cellar (Outside Voices 2006). about.me/jessicasmith

Amanda Earl's most recent chapbook with above/ground press is Sex First & Then A Sandwich & her most recent broadside is "Trieste," published by In/Words Magazine & Press in June, 2013. Scattered about the Northern & Southern Hemispheres, her poems have been published in Australia, Canada, Europe and the USA. Two manuscripts have been shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Innovative Poetry Award. She is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the (fallen) angel of AngelHousePress. Amanda will be reading from a new series of prose poems.

The winner of Arc Poetry Magazine's 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, Marilyn Irwin's work has been published by above/ground press, Bywords, ottawater, Peter F. Yacht Club,and most recently, the Canadian section of this year’s New American Writing. A graduate of Algonquin College's Creative Writing program, she has released three chapbooks: for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012), and little nothings (2012).