Wednesday, February 28, 2018

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Erín Moure


This is the seventh in a series of short essays/reminiscences by a variety of authors and friends of the press to help mark the quarter century mark of above/ground. See links to the whole series here.

The Spirit Duplicator
by Erín Moure on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of above /ground...
16 February 2018

Twenty-five years later, what do I remember most about the beginnings of above/ground? The incessant mailings. They’d drive you nuts. The spill of paper from hand-scrawled envelopes, more often than not unsolicited, the variable quality of the poetry, the unaesthetic production of the DIY school, in which is embedded the history of the photocopy and the murmur-click and sweet solvent scent of the once-ubiquitous “ditto machine,” the spirit duplicator. rob mclennan, with above/ground, pursued a future that the advent of the photocopy had buried as history, and he did it with photocopies, above ground and unburied: our spirit duplicator.

There was always something in the envelope that intrigued. That caught eye and mind. And you felt rob’s generosity in giving writers the courage of a publication—while seeing their potential to go further in the future. Their next chapbook would surprise. Their books would appear—more surprises.

As rob mclennan persisted, the circle grew. More submissions, more readers. Readers further away, across borders, across and through languages in English translation. Where most other people would lose energy and desist, rob has continued, irrepressibly: a spirit duplicator.

The works may be humble in fabrication, but there is a presence and excitement each time the envelope comes, and intrigue at how works are put in conversation, poets are put in conversation. More energy. Borders fall. We want this conversation.

Unlike a creative writing school that tells poets where they fall short, in order to haul them upward, rob mclennan just invites, and offers, and accepts, and does. Instead of spending his time filling endless paper to apply for grants and bend to the priorities of neoliberal institutions and their politics, rob has just solicited, published, created a space for conversation and work not restrained by agencies, schools, or settled perimeters. Instead of spending disposable income (when he had any) on himself, he spent it on mailing us poetry. You never saw rob driving a car, wearing a snappy suit, showing off photos of his vacation in Umbria or at the MOMA. You saw him on foot, at local festivals holding out envelopes of above/ground chapbooks. You saw him at small press fairs, at readings and events, in Ottawa primarily but also in Toronto or Edmonton, in a bar or a coffee shop, carrying above/ground chapbooks, broadsheets, pulling you some new publication out of his bag. He wrote and writes a lot of books of poetry of his own; yet in no way does he wish to take up all the space. Rather, he make space for others, makes the space of poetry bigger: a spirit duplicator.

Against all the odds, and oddities, it seems to be working. When institutions constrain us (and poets who want to be institutions), schools trade on mainstream power, and magazines are under the thumb of arts councils to have their spreadsheets show the right numbers, above/ground keeps publishing. And keeps getting better, its works more urgent, more diverse and inclusive, more queer, more embodied in difference and étrangéité. rob doesn’t run out of energy. He makes us all a space of poetry that nourishes itself, us, him, and you others. The chapbooks cheer me up every time they arrive. A spirit duplicator!





Erín Moure is a poet and translator of poetry based in Montreal and Kelowna. In Canada, the USA, and the UK, she has published 17 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, a volume of essays, a book of short articles on translation, a poetics, a memoir, various chapbooks and broadsheets, and she is translator or co-translator of 17 books of poetry and two of creative non fiction (biopoetics) (and some chapbooks!) from French, Spanish, Galician and Portuguese. 

Moure has two above/ground press chapbooks, including panpiped panacea панацея, ten poems by Yuri Izdryk, translated from the Ukrainian by Roman Ivashkiv and Erín Moure (2016) and from the uplands, The Book of the Courel by Uxío Novoneyra, translated by Erín Moure, with an introduction by Antón Lopo (forthcoming, spring 2018).

Monday, February 26, 2018

new from above/ground press: muscle memory, by Stan Rogal

muscle memory
by Stan Rogal
$5


slipstream




“a mind disposed to slipping grinds sparks from the concrete”

“as being buzz-bombed by a big black bumblebee, bzzzzzzz…

“my yoyo my kitty my young pimp my hoot owl my ampersand”

“from baudelaire to proust our literature contains far too many abnormals”



                                    “what of the fireworks? : (gone, gone)”

                                    “vampire guano everywhere”

                                    “ticking of a cat in the hallway like a bomb”

                                    “story ends with a murder : my own”



“what of the woods reversed, say : no lemon no melon, say : say, a mirror”

“the guideless guidebooks of postmodernist duplicity”

“a line is drawn : someone has tracked a shadow”

“language is derivative : an omen seeking nemo :  exeunt pursued by bear”
 
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Stan Rogal
lives and writes in Toronto. He recently retired from the UofT Standardized Patient Program where he taught and assessed communication skills for students and professionals in the health care industry. His literary work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He is the author of 23 books as well as a produced playwright.

This is Rogal’s fourth above/ground press chapbook, after In Search of the Emerald City (1997), “THE CELEBRITY RAG: Opá” (STANZAS #44, March 2006) and All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (2004).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Friday, February 23, 2018

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Jason Christie



This is the sixth in a series of short essays/reminiscences by a variety of authors and friends of the press to help mark the quarter century mark of above/ground. See links to the whole series here.

I don't like hugs, but I like above/ground press

25 years is a long time. Against a backdrop of small presses started and stopped by young grad students that last anywhere between one and four years (cough, yardpress, cough), 25 years seems like the age of the universe.

I heard about above/ground when I was an undergrad at York University in the '90s. rob would appear in Toronto, at small press fairs, or readings, but I was too shy to say hi. It wasn't until he came to Calgary in 2002 that we struck up a friendship, albeit a distant and somewhat disconnected one. I was living below ground at the time.

above/ground was one of the first presses to get me thinking about the small press as a haven away from the world of literary prestige, reputations, publicity, marketing, networking, and all that stuff that saps energy from the pleasure of making things (chapbooks, poems, books). A package from rob included everything from a hastily-produced leaflet to a perfectly polished series of poems lovingly stapled together. The DIY aspect of above/ground's production speaks to emphasizing circulation, the excitement of the new, and a celebration of the speed with which things can travel from one person to many. above/ground was a nascent social media platform for poets before many of them had even heard of the Internet.

The thing that people subconsciously understand about rob is that once you've met him, you are friends. We're built to mistrust that kind of openness and enthusiasm. That willingness to embrace the other. rob will contact you or greet you enthusiastically if he rolls through your town, he will invite you to read in Ottawa, he will invite you to send him things, he will ask about your family, and he will invite you into his.

rob is genuinely interested in poetry as an activity, as a thing people do, not just as an end in and of itself. For rob, poetry is a means of circulation and an expression of relationships. Questions of aesthetics and quality, are secondary to intention and enthusiasm when you reimagine poetry as the fibre that connects people. Quality and aesthetics are important, but above them I see the gesture to connect people all across Canada to each other, to bring them into proximity, and that is one of the most important contributions above/ground makes to our literary lives.

In rob's 25 year run you will encounter poems by a staggering number of authors, a fact made even more incredible by the fact that it manifests as a result of his interactions with people. He opens his arms to include people who have been publishing for decades and people who have yet to publish their first poem or chapbook, and he treats them equally. That is a beautiful thing for such a mature, vital press. As someone who has found homes for poems and chapbooks with above/ground over the last two and a half decades, I'm grateful to consider rob a friend first and a publisher second.




Jason Christie is the author of Canada Post (Snare), i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and a co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury). His next book will be published in the Spring of 2019. He is currently writing poetry about (being) objects, and exaltation.

Christie is the author of five above/ground press chapbooks, including 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013), Cursed Objects (2014), The Charm (2015) and random_lines =random.choice (2017).


Thursday, February 22, 2018

new from above/ground press: rib and instep : honey, by Rachel Mindell

rib and instep: honey
Rachel Mindell
$5

I am Zsa Zsa Gabor Says Monkey

And you're my one in seven billion,
quiet as a hummingbird.

Out where crafts hover,
where the triangles blip

and depart, I was certain
a ship might land so stealth

we could serve it lunch.
Potted meat on two truths,

toast points. Plates edged
by tabloid wallpaper and

an airbase. I catch glimpses
only to release them,

blinking. You've decided
on levels beyond which

you won’t so I've decided to
give you a haircut. One hot buzz,

tight enough to level my fictitious
with your decent. Photography

behind the counter, doctored
yes but exhibiting kin crop marks

and light strips, oracle gone
sky highward. You don't have to

know much to know something.
Sometimes the only sane answer

to a senseless world is paranoia.
New clothes, mascara. A wig maybe.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Rachel Mindell
lives in Tucson, Arizona. She is the author of Like a Teardrop and a Bullet (Dancing Girl Press), and her poems have appeared (or will) in Pool, DIAGRAM, Bombay Gin, BOAAT, Forklift, Ohio, Glass Poetry, The Journal, Sundog Lit, Tammy, and elsewhere. Rachel holds an MFA and MA from the University of Montana. She manages content and promotions for Submittable, and teaches poetry to young people.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Amanda Earl



This is the fifth in a series of short essays/reminiscences by a variety of authors and friends of the press to help mark the quarter century mark of above/ground. See links to the whole series here.

I have above/ground press chapbooks and broadsides on my bookshelves from the early aughts, but I don’t know when I became a subscriber. I suspect around 2006 or so. Through their publication I have learned of writers that were new to me. These writers made me aware of the possibility of play, of prose poems, of the sentence as line, of fragments and of playing with narrative.

above/ground press has been a model for my own AngelHousePress/DevilHouse, not just because of the myriad styles of writing the chapbooks have introduced me to, but also because of all the different things done as part of above/ground press by the seemingly indefatigable rob mclennan.

Chapbooks alone would have been sufficient enough for any press and we all know that this press publishes a lot of chapbooks in any given year, but here’s a list of above/ground press activity over the past twenty-five years in addition to the chapbooks:













I don’t know of any more active and far-reaching press in Canada. I am grateful that above/ground press is here and I’m happy to celebrate its 25th year. I am fortunate to have had five chapbooks, three broadsides published by the press, and numerous other poems published in Ottawater, PFYC, to have read at the Factory Reading Series, and also to have done several interviews with rob through the various series. Here’s to another 25 plus!


Amanda Earl is a writer, publisher, editor and visual poet from Ottawa. above/ground press chapbooks include Eleanor (2007), The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman (2008), Sex First and Then A Sandwich (2012), A Book of Saints (2015) and Lady Lazarus Redux (2017). Her first (and only) poetry book, Kiki, was published by Chaudiere Books in 2014. Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the (fallen) angel of AngelHousePress. For more information, visit AmandaEarl.com or connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

new from above/ground press: SEARCHING FOR A SPECIES, by Eleni Zisimatos

SEARCHING FOR A SPECIES
Eleni Zisimatos
$4

In looking for a species, we search
Dimensions, like April or noon, and
Then we don’t find the certain
Ectoplasm or little being who looks like us
And we hate with such sincerity

That the fall from Eden looks like child’s play
That snake, so certain of itself, the monkey that
Came after from the loins of Adam

A mistake. We are small creatures, after all,
We only needed the wine, the dance
Of nightshade
Or Dionysus with the spear he stole
From Poseidon, what a mass of nothingness
The grapes, the tenor of craziness
In this, our planet

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2018
celebrating twenty-five years of above/ground press
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Eleni Zisimatos
, born and raised in Montreal, writes about loss and injustice when she is not editing Vallum Magazine. She has been short-listed for several awards, including a National Magazine Award. www.vallummag.com

This is Zisimatos’ second above/ground press title after summations : travels through Italy, produced as STANZAS magazine, volume 1, issue #27 (April 2001).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Monday, February 19, 2018

Greg Bem reviews Stephen Collis’ NEW LIFE (2016)

Our pal Greg Bem was good enough to provide the first review for Stephen Collis’ NEW LIFE (2016) at Goodreads. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.
Stephen Collis, known for an activation of activism among and beyond the Canadian paradigm, brings forth a handful of new ideas and frames for approaching and appreciating the process of social life in the contemporary discourse/discord. Collis's poems here meet the standard and expectations of the majority of his work, but fall slightly flat in their compactness. The poems are certainly enjoyable and provocative, but fail to resonate with the louder bang+crunch of works that find appropriate space and context within a larger work. Still, as a brief glimpse, a shortened assortment, the book does stand on its own and deserves a read despite the want for it to be supplemental to a definite, greater significance (proven elsewhere and beyond by Collis himself).