some author activity: Turnbull, Pirie, Armantrout, Robertson, Mangold + hastain,

a. rawlings did a small write-up on above/ground press author Chris Turnbull's "rout/e" project; Pearl Pirie discusses Rae Armantrout in her essay, "What is Being Said," recently posted on her blog; Michael Redhill discusses Lisa Robertson over at Lemonhound; Armantrout reads Fanny Howe's poem "9/11" over at the Library of Congress website; Tsering Wangmo Dhompa writes on Sarah Mangold over at Harriet; and j/j hastain has a new poem posted on the Dusie blog as part of the Tuesday poem.

new from above/ground press: punchlines, by Aaron Tucker

punchlines

by Aaron Tucker

$4

why was the camel unhappy?

it’s still a good idea to contemplate

while the city sprawls out in waves

beneath our apartment balcony:

my father is dead hit by a car

I land + rush to the hospital

in time for the whistle of one lung working 

but my father is dead, mist

later I mow my mother’s lawn careful to avoid

sporting goods skeletons + that highway

that barn sprawling towards the cow field

I let the grass clippings blow onto the yard

careful to avoid thinking about that blade

whirling slicing through the flesh of my hand

slicing through my arm torso like an ocean drowning

|| a bumper impact || a twenty nine story fall

the way a yard might rush upwards me downward

as if I woke up on a river shoreline in Montana at sunset

repeating the same motion that the night takes

rushing downwards over the mountains

the moon whirls out + my mother goes to bed

dreams of my father pushing the lawnmower

back into the barn closing locking the door

that blade hyperlinks to

the grass pouring out

of my veins onto our apartment balcony

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

May 2013

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Aaron Tucker’s poetic works and reviews have been published across Canada. His chapbook, apartments (The Emergency Response Unit), was shortlisted for the 2010 bpNichol Chapbook award. His current project, tentatively titled punchlines, is moving ever slowly forward. More of his work can be found at aarontucker.ca.

In addition, he is a professor in the English department at Ryerson University where he is currently teaching essay writing and digital literacy to first year students.

He is working on learning chess in between watching his beloved Raptors lose games.

This is Tucker’s second above/ground press chapbook, after apartments, section three (2010).

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

new from above/ground press: MNEMOTECHNICS, by Jessica Smith

MNEMOTECHNICS
by Jessica Smith
$4

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

Jessica Smith, 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 including What the Fortune-Teller Said (dusie/a+bend 2009), butterflies (Big Game Books 2006), The Plasticity of Poetry and Telling Time (No Press 2006), and Shifting Landscapes (above/ground press 2006) and one full-length collection, Organic Furniture Cellar (Outside Voices 2006).

Copies of her previous above/ground press chapbook, Shifting Landscapes, are still available!

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

ryan pratt reviews recent mclennan and wilkinson titles at the ottawa poetry newsletter,

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review rob mclennan's Trace, (above/ground press, 2013) and Joshua Marie Wilkinson's A Little Slash at the Meadow (above/ground press, 2013) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

some author activity: Martin, Roberton, McCann, Smith, beaulieu + Wilkinson,

Camille Martin has some new work up at otoliths; Lisa Robertson writes on Dionne Brand over on Lemonhound; Marcus McCann discusses one of his recent poems over at the Town Crier; Jessica Smith has some new work up at Word for Word: Gary Barwin discusses derek beaulieu's piece, "Prose of the Trans-Canada," over at Jacket2; and Joshua Marie Wilkinson discusses The Volta over at the Poetry Society of America.

new from above/ground press: GOVERNMENT, by Jason Christie

GOVERNMENT
by Jason Christie
$4

Talos Awake

Every cycle causes
day and night
calming, tilling or
disturbing waves
with inexhaustible
transit. What end
could befuddle so
many that we
would retreat
into myth again?
The fire-breathing bull,
an A overhead, passing
all purpose, trees
sway and grow
from warm soil.
In the end, wood
exsanguinated,
unnailed and
empty. At the
end of days
we're left with
molten lead.

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

Jason Christie grew up in Milton, Ontario. Jason’s poetry has appeared in journals and magazines, including: filling Station, dANDelion, Poetry is Dead, Action, Yes!, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line and Interiason is the author of i-ROBOT Poetry (http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/irobotpoetry/ir-catalog.html), Canada Post (http://snarebooks.wordpress.com/books/jason-christie/) and Unknown Actor which will be published by Insomniac Press in the Spring of 2013. He is also an editor alongside angela rawlings and derek beaulieu of the anthology Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (http://www.themercurypress.ca/?q=books/shift_switch).

This is Christie’s second above/ground press chapbook, after 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004).

Jason Christie reads in Ottawa on Monday, May 13, 2013 as part of the spring Insomniac Press launch at Raw Sugar Cafe.

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

Keeping Time: rob mclennan interviewed for Boog City on twenty years of above/ground press

Kimberly Ann Southwick was good enough to interview me for the new issue of New York's Boog City [the specific issue featuring the original interview is downloadable here] on twenty years of above/ground press. Thanks very much! Boog City was also the host, many years ago, of an above/ground press reading (and the American launch of Groundswell: the best of above/ground press, 1993-2003) featuring myself, Clare Latremouille and Stephen Brockwell, January 7, 2004. See the brief post-reading post I wrote on such here.

Called "The Baseball Issue," Boog City #80 also features new work by Kevin Varrone, Kit Robinson, K. Lorraine Graham and plenty of others.

The author of more than 20 trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in a number of countries, rob mclennan has published work in over 200 trade journals in 14 countries and three languages, and has performed in Ireland, England, Wales, the United States and across Canada. His most recent titles are the poetry collections Songs for little sleep, (Obvious Epiphanies Press), grief notes: (BlazeVOX [books]), A (short) history of l. (BuschekBooks), and Glengarry (Talonbooks) and a second novel, missing persons (The Mercury Press). After nearly eight months of producing chapbooks under different press names, above/ground press officially started with its first two publications almost 20 years ago, and has published nearly seven hundred publications since, including chapbooks, broadsides, and nearly 50 issues of the long poem magazine STANZAS, half a dozen issues of Missing Jacket, and drop, and many of the 15 issues of the writers group occasional The Peter F. Yacht Club. Additionally, he has also organized a few hundred literary readings in Ottawa, Edmonton, and Toronto. This January also marked the 20th anniversary of his occasional reading series, The Factory Reading Series. Earlier this year, mclennan took some time to answer questions about above/ground press and its upcoming anniversary.

Boog City: How long has above/ground press been around?
rob mclennan: above/ground press started officially in August, 1993, after some eight months of a couple of other publications under various (if at all) press names.

BC: How has the press evolved over the years?
rm: While keeping poetry chapbooks as the focus, I’ve been exploring and utilizing other forms in which to publish and distribute work. Over the years, the press has become more expansive, starting to produce single-poem “poem” broadsides in 1995 (which now appear on the blog, a few weeks after print publication), and a couple of journals as well, including STANZAS (for long poems/sequences), Missing Jacket (a writing and visual arts journal), and drop magazine, all of which are long gone. above/ground press currently produces most of the issues of our writer’s group journal, The Peter F. Yacht Club. In 2007-8, I produced a series of monthly chapbooks (by predominantly Alberta poets) while I was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, later putting them all online as free downloadable pdfs.

BC: What are your hopes for the press in the future?
rm: My hopes for the press are basically to continue to keep improving design and print quality, distribution and sales, while maintaining my own aesthetic of doing whatever I find interesting whenever I feel like it, and sending occasional packets off to the nearly 80 subscribers and “friends of the press.” Most of what I produce through the press are solicited works, by authors I’m excited to see new writing from, and for years I’ve been telling myself that I’ll stop doing these things (above/ground press being but one) when they’re no longer fun. Somehow I don’t see that changing for quite a long time.