new from above/ground press: dieting Herb Wit, by Kevin McPherson Eckhoff

dieting Herb Wit
kevin mcpherson eckhoff
$5

EEL AROUND THE FOUNTAIN


I, the sparkling sloth,
initiate the stranger’s
rafter. School
before schism, practice.
He kissed chard.

Slips to lisps,
harp teeth tore sheep teeth.
Ass ritual.

Yay from the gong.
I wouldn’t watch
fearsome acrostics clothe sloths.
Honest practice.

The note:
I’d shit at the top of the bleachers,
trying to stink into their wood,
watching pee glands glistening towards a joke.

*

I shave dreams of water.
I shave dreams of fire.
I dream of bloomed
ham. All of these things

infer I, ever marrowy.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

kevin mcpherson eckhoff is a writer, editor, actor, and comedian. His book their biography (Book*hug) was described by The Globe & Mail as “wide-ranging” and “incredibly playful,” while Michael Dennis called his chapbook Circadia (Gaspereau Press) “scatalogical gold”. When not writing, kevin acts in films, like Nuptials and Recon; when not acting, he teaches essay demolition and creative wording at Okanagan College; when not teaching, he manages our teeth, a micropress dedicated to making small, odd bookish objects; when not micropressing, he daddles and hubbubs in a log home on 16 acres within traditional Splats'in territories.

This is Eckhoff's third above/ground press title, after dissections from their biography (2012) and faux foe (2018)

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

TODAY IS THE TWENTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY OF ABOVE/GROUND PRESS!

Happy birthday, above/ground press! (the press is currently at some 1055 published items-to-date, by the by) This year is different, obviously; we can't have a big anniversary reading/launch/party the way we've had in other years. I suppose that means we'll just have to make next year's party bigger, then, yes? See my report on last year's 26th anniversary event here, the 25th anniversary event in 2018 (and the big list of numbers I compiled that same year), the 23rd anniversary event in Ottawa and a further 23rd anniversary event in Toronto back in 2016, the twentieth anniversary event from 2013, and the 19th anniversary event back in 2012; remember those? We will do events again, promise! And there will most likely be cake! But once we emerge: will people still dance? will dubstep still be a thing? will food trucks still be a thing? (Most likely answers: yes. no. yes.)

Don't forget that the pandemic/summer sale is still going on for another week or so (or something), and the Black Lives Matter : chapbook give-away is ongoing (until I run out of the mound of chapbooks I pulled out for the idea) (oh, and I still have t-shirts left over from the 25th anniversary, by the by). But do not worry! The press will still be here throughout this ongoing crisis, attempting to produce chapbooks, journals and broadsides as best as possible (you should totally be following all of the poetry-related activity going on at our newish online journal, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics), and promote authors as best as possible (don't forget Michael Sikkema's call for submissions as part of his issue of G U E S T [a journal of guest editors], yes?), as well as attempting to help push the world into a far healthier, open, equal and thoughtful space for all to live with dignity and respect. We can do that, right? And when we emerge from all of this, we shall be better for it, in part because we chose to be better. But for now: stay home! wash your hands! please be safe! and be nicer to everyone. We can make it.

new from above/ground press: my beatrice, by Orchid Tierney

my beatrice
orchid tierney
$5

VII

My Beatrice & I watch the primary

debates because we are monstrous fictions.

This, excites Beatrice, is the moment when

the evil Brain arrives from Planet Arous.

I look backward to the nuclear sequence

where everyone is incinerated. Then it is

three minutes to midnight. A woman without

perfume refuses Dante’s future. I believe in

demons & sprites. I believe in canopies

so tired from painful touching. There is

little difference between twilights & mourning.

Beatrice, some days her muse will ace her desire.

“If you’re ever going to love me,” put on the drier.

I will deliver her punchline after I forget my joke.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Orchid Tierney is an Aotearoa-New Zealand poet and scholar, currently living in Gambier, Ohio, where she teaches at Kenyon College. She is the author of a year of misreading the wildcats (Operating System, 2019) and Earsay (TrollThread 2016), and chapbooks ocean plastic (BlazeVOX 2019), blue doors (Belladonna* Press), Gallipoli Diaries (GaussPDF 2017), the world in small parts (Dancing Girl Press, 2012), and Brachiaction (Gumtree, 2012). Other poems, reviews, and scholarship have appeared in Jacket2, Journal of Modern Literature, and Western Humanities Review, among others. She is a consulting editor for the Kenyon Review.

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Robert Bolick discusses Derek Beaulieu's tattered sails (after un coup de des) (2018) at BOOKS ON BOOKS

Robert Bolick discusses Derek Beaulieu's prior above/ground press chapbook, tattered sails (after un coup de des) (2018), in a thorough review over at BOOKS ON BOOKS. Thanks so much! You can read Bolick's review-essay here. This is actually the second review of Beaulieu's 2018 chapbook, after Scott Bryson reviewed such over at Broken Pencil.

new from above/ground press: CABARET, by Derek Beaulieu

CABARET
Derek Beaulieu
$4

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty collections of poetry, prose, and criticism, including two volumes of his selected work, Please, No More Poetry (2013) and Konzeptuelle Arbeiten (2017). His most recent volume of fiction, a, A Novel was published by Paris’s Jean Boîte Editions. Beaulieu has exhibited his visual work across Canada, the United States, and Europe and has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students. Derek Beaulieu holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton University and is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He can be found online at www.derekbeaulieu.com

This is Beaulieu’s ninth above/ground press chapbook, after an issue of the long poem magazine STANZAS (“calcite gours 1-19,” issue no. 38), the interview chapbook ECONOMIES OF SCALE: rob mclennan interviews derek beaulieu on NO PRESS / derek beaulieu interviews rob mclennan on above/ground press (2012) and single-author chapbooks “A? any questions? (1998), [Dear Fred] (2004), HOW TO EDIT, Chapter A. (ALBERTA SERIES #8; 2008), transcend transcribe transfigure transform transgress (2014), a a novel: 1-20 (2017) and tattered sails (after un coup de des) (2018).

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some above/ground press author activity: Maloukis, Barwin, Mohammadi + Clayton,

forthcoming author Rose Maloukis has a new poem up at Train : a poetry journal, as well as an interview; both Gary Barwin (with Michael Orr) and Khashayar Mohammadi (with Mehraz Karami) have new collaborations up at Long Con Magazine; and Conyer Clayton is interviewed by book blogger Ivana over at her blog.

new from above/ground press: BLATTA, by Julia Drescher

BLATTA
Julia Drescher
$5

Did solitude ever exist?

Scrap metal from bombs exposed.

Punctuation hurts.


A passive tumbling instrument of.

Experiments in such, the grid's diffract by did.


The larynx of an animal throws at the illusion of a fixed position.

If you hiss you can pray to roaches against God.

Low trees. Have you gotten to the bottom of things? Waivering.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Julia Drescher is the author of Open Epic (Delete Press). She lives in Colorado where she co-edits the press Further Other Book Works with C.J. Martin. A second above/ground press title is forthcoming.

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com