some author activity: Paige, Morton, Beaulieu, Ross, Dennis + Earl,

Abby Paige participates in the "Six Questions" interview series over at Chaudiere Books; Colin Morton responds to same; Derek Beaulieu has a new essay in the "Talking Poetics" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Stuart Ross interviews Michael Dennis; and Amanda Earl has a photo essay at Watch Your Head.

some author activity: Bolster, Paige, Cortese, Downs + Ackerson-Kiely,

Stephanie Bolster has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day; Abby Paige has a poem included in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Franco Cortese has a poem and short interview online at Canadian Literature; Buck Downs is interviewed at DCPL Radio; and Paige Ackerson-Kiely has a poem up at The Millions.

some author activity: Syersak, Paige, Gurton-Wachter + Dowling,

Jake Syersak is interviewed by Jeff Alessandrelli over at Fanzine; Abby Paige has a new poem in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; Anna Gurton-Wachter has an essay online at Social Text; and Sarah Dowling talks about writing one of her books for the "Opening the Book" series at M/M.

some author activity: timewell, mclennan, Paige, Earl, Adams + Smith,

lary timewell has two new poems, along with a short write-up by rob mclennan, now up at Jacket2; mclennan's profile of Abby Paige is also new online at Open Book: Ontario; Amanda Earl has some new visual poems up at Unlikely Stories; a recent collaboration Carrie Olivia Adams was involved in gets a little write-up at The Watchful Ear; and Jessica Smith has two new poems from "Daybooks" up at MiPo.

The Factory Reading Series: Paige, Sheppy + Thomas, February 20, 2015

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

The Factory Reading Series presents:

Abby Paige (Ottawa)
Nikki Sheppy (Calgary)
+ Hugh Thomas (Fredericton)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, February 20, 2015;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Abby Paige is a writer and performer whose work has been published in the US and Canada, recently including Room, Ottawater, Arc, and the Montreal Review of Books. Her chapbook, Other Brief Discourses, was published by Ottawa’s above/ground press in 2013. Abby was born and raised in Northern Vermont, and her solo show, Piecework: When We Were French, explores the legacy of French-Canadian immigration to northern New England. She has toured with the show throughout New England, and it is now available on DVD.

Nikki Sheppy is a poet, editor and arts journalist. She has a doctorate in English literature from the University of Calgary. Her book reviews have appeared in Uppercase Magazine, Alberta Views, and Lemon Hound, and her poetry in Event and Matrix. She serves as President of the Board of filling Station, Calgary’s experimental literary and arts magazine, and is the author of the poetry chapbook, Grrrrlhood: a ludic suite (Kalamalka 2014).

Hugh Thomas is a poet and translator living in Fredericton, where he teaches mathematics at the University of New Brunswick.  His most recent chapbook, Albanian Suite, was published by above/ground press in 2014.  His previous chapbook, Opening the Dictionary, also published by above/ground press, was shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol chapbook award.

some author activity: Armantrout, Smith, Barwin, Paige, beaulieu + McCann,

Rae Armantrout lists her 'Best Books of 2013" over at The Volta; Jessica Smith's chapbook-length The Fortune-Teller appears in The Chapbook: Volume 2; Gary Barwin recently posted a poem for Toronto Mayor Rob Ford; Abby Paige has a new poem featured in the new issue of Room magazine (including online); Calgary Herald does an interesting write-up on derek beaulieu; and Marcus McCann has a poem reprinted on the véhicule press blog as part of their Sunday poem feature, selected by Carmine Starnino.

some author activity: beaulieu, McNair, Paige, Maguire, Bolster, Armantrout, Anstee + the above/ground press fetish object,

Pearl Pirie discusses derek beaulieu's work over at CWILA: Canadian Women in the Literary Arts; Christine McNair has a blog post up at the IFOA website, anticipating her participation in this year's festival; the dvd of Abby Paige's solo show, Piecework: When We Were French, is finally available; Shannon Maguire was interviewed over at The Toronto Quarterly; Stephanie Bolster has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog; Rae Armantrout has a new poem up at the Boston Review; and Cameron Anstee discusses the recent "above/ground press fetish object" (among other recent acquisitions) that Christine McNair and I put together for the above/ground press twentieth anniversary celebration.

some author activity: Paige, Ladoueur, Poe, Robertson + The Factory Reading Series,

Abby Paige has a new essay, "On the Invention of Writing," posted as part of the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Ben Ladouceur is interviewed by Ruckus Readings; Deborah Poe writes on Megan Burns, and Lisa Roberston writes on John Clare, over at Lemonhound; and Pearl Pirie was good enough to post a report on the recent Factory Reading Series event with Dale Smith, Hoa Nguyen and Mari-Lou Rowley.

Abby Paige's chapbook, Other Brief Discourses, is reviewed in Broken Pencil #60

Scott Bryson was good enough to review Abby Paige's chapbook, Other Brief Discourses (2013) in Broken Pencil #60. Thanks, Scott! Copies of Other Brief Discourses are still available, here.

Never again, need you ask: "What would explorer Samuel de Champlain think of his New France, 400 years after he established its first settlements?" Other Brief Discourses chronicles Champlain's less-than-triumphant return to Quebec in the 21st century (laws of space and time suspented), as "translated" and rendered poetic verse by writer and stage performer Abby Paige.
    The past-meets-present premise, while not novel, is a challenging perspective to attempt in a book of poetry -- for that, Paige deserves admiration. There are times, though, when she wavers in her presentation of the journey's finer details, leaving Champlain's comprehension of the present day seeming markedly uneven. In early verses, as he arrives in Montreal, Champlain appears to possess preexisting knowledge of bus stations, billboards, big box stores and baggage carousels; a lack of wonder is evident. In a later poem ("VII. The Metro"), seemingly astonished, the only words Champlain can find to describe a subway train are: "a snake with eyes alight" -- finally, the sort of viewpoint you'd expect from a time-traveling tourist. Though the focus in Other Brief Discourses is on Champlain's transplantation in our present, the most imrpessive poems in Paige's collection find Champlain in his own era, lost in reverie, or caught up in dreams about the life he left behind (from "XVIII. A dream"): "We are fishing in the Algonquin fashion / with spears. I am the spear piercing / the flesh of the rainbow trout. I am the trout / whose flesh is hauled aboard."
    Also intriguing, here, is Paige's insertion of herself into these poems as Champlain's street-wise guide. Through the explorer's accounts of their interactions, we get what feels like an inside look at Paige's day-to-day life and her opinion of the city she lives in. At times, hers seems like the more interesting tale.

Ryan Pratt reviews Jordan Abel and Abby Paige over at the ottawa poetry newsletter blog

Thanks, Ryan! See the original review here.

Scientia by Jordan Abel
Other Brief Discourses by Abby Paige

Both titles published by above/ground press, 2013.

Last spring I attended a talk on contemporary poetry styles given by rob mclennan and Pearl Pirie. In my full account of that Ottawa Independent Writers event, I mentioned an instance when some of the group’s most vocal members took exception to the merits of visual poetry. For the purposes of that review, I referred to the incident as little more than a hiccup amidst the flow of discourse. In the heat of it, however, that hiccup persisted for over twenty minutes. Several attendees brashly refused to see substance in visual poetry while the two guest-speakers defended the form as yet another approach to language and expression.

Keep in mind: nobody had been close enough to read the text in question. The chapbook hadn’t even left the guest-speakers’ table. Nevertheless that flash example of chaotic and non-linear displays resulted in a prolonged back-and-forth, as if unearthing insecurities in the writers’ own private works. That thought-provoking debate springs to mind when I read Jordan Abel’s Scientia because, aside from the fact that I’m also a tad intimidated by visual poetry, I think naysayers would gain some insight via Abel’s sharp approach.

Scientia’s lead poem reads like a testing of organic matter, the accumulation and reductions that eventually balance in the creation of life:

“All colour terms are reduced, cut short, not the usual length. Acephalous: without a head. Those muscid additions that give the glandular structure that branching apex. Abrupt or hidden. Rubbed or scraped. The third abductor extending past the honeycomb of the optic tract. The tapering surface made white like a siphon.”

As pointed and sensory as schoolbook directives, Abel’s language unfurls on the adjoining page, exploring its subject in wide-open parameters without losing the text’s core meaning. Such is the twofold approach of Scientia, a study of insect anatomy and miniscule advances that help to shape a greater understanding alongside Abel’s visual accompaniments.

Of these eight poems fully immersed in the working gears of insect species and their visual re-interpretations (in which insect outlines blot the swarm of off-shooting words), neither approach feels the dominant one. Instead they’re co-dependent on a singular focus that succeeds in drawing the reader to parallel the base instincts of these complex creatures against our own. With particularly stunning presentation by above/ground press, Scientia’s findings can behave like Rorschach tests just as convincingly as they look the part.

Very few experiences inspire me, both as a writer and overall life-enthusiast, to the degree that discovering a new city does. Whether I’m grabbing life by the horns or trying to flee from its expectations, a new city promises that clean slate the restless crave and the committed can only dream about. Abby Paige’s Other Brief Discourses, a sequence of poems centered on a trip to Quebec, instinctively reminds me of the raw drifter muses I’d pore onto pages during countless Greyhound bus trips.

But Paige finds a unique lens beyond the escapist reverie: ‘translating’ Samuel Champlain de Brouage’s encounters in New France “during the early years of the new millennium”. In this fantasy memoir, the explorer wrestles to integrate himself amidst post-millennial Montreal’s “pox of pavement”, the outer banks of the Saint Lawrence River and citizens who illustrate modern life as secular and money-driven (compared to the late 1500s, of course). Excerpt from "VII. The metro":

“and he is gone in the earthquake of sound
that rushes past, sucking air from
the station like a succubus – and people

in the belly of the snake!  A blur of faces,
hundreds, two kissing. The doors gasp
open, we step over the threshold

and in. Inside the beast, we swim through the inside
of the earth as the dead swim, treading soil
like water, ghosts breathing without gills.”

Although fully aware he has lost four centuries, Paige’s Champlain rarely engages old-world wonderment as much as in the above excerpt. In fact many observations feel symptomatic of a far less lengthy absence; the sprouting big-box outlets in Montreal, the zoned-out travelers and junkies at the bus station. This is as much Paige’s poetic retelling as it is a fictional what-if tale and Other Brief Discourses thrives on the duality of its yearning protagonist(s).

By its very premise, this sequence of poems is charming. (A poem chronicling Champlain’s irritation while waiting at the American border keeps springing to mind.) Paige doesn’t settle for situational, fish-out-of-water commentary though, instead touching on shades of nostalgia and belonging that gather additional traction for her narrative. From cramped, urban tunnels and hostel quarters to Champlain’s soiled, waterway haunts; through the flurry of morning commuters to downtown’s late-night pub-crawls; Other Brief Discourses strikes a natural ebb and flow that frees the reader from feeling stuck in one place for too long.

Some author activity: MillAr, Poe, Hancock, Lindner, Markotic + Paige

Jay MillAr has a new poem up at Stuart Ross' The Week Shall Inherit The Verse; Deborah Poe has two new poems up at Shampoo #40; Brecken Hancock interviews Sue Sinclair, CWILA Critic-in-Residence; Erik Lindner writes a column in Dutch on the Poetry International website referencing Nicole Markotic's use of the term "prairie poetry"; and Vermont's Times Argus has a short article on Abby Paige's upcoming one-woman show in Montpelier, Vermont.

Brecken Hancock and Abby Paige at Open Book: Ontario

above/ground press authors Brecken Hancock and Abby Paige participate in Open Book: Ontario, to help promote their chapbook launch tonight in Ottawa. Hancock participates in the Poets in Profile series, and Paige provides the first of a new series, The War Series: Writers as Readers.

Q & A: 20 Years of above/ground press / an interview with rob mclennan on the Broken Pencil blog

Alison Lang, Assistant Editor of Broken Pencil magazine, was good enough to interview me recently on the above/ground press twentieth anniversary [photo by Deborah Poe], posted on the Broken Pencil blog. Thanks so much, Alison!

You can find the original post here.

Poet, novelist, editor and publisher rob mclennan has run Ottawa-based above/ground press since 1993. The press — which specializes in chapbooks and broadsides – celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Through above/ground, mclennan has shone a spotlight on local and national talent, releasing chapbooks by the likes of Marcus McCann, Ben Ladouceur, Marilyn Irwin, Cameron Anstee, Lea Graham and Shannon Maguire, among many, many others. above/ground’s continued existence is a testament to mclennan’s passion and commitment to indie poetry and publishing, and stands as a strong rebuttal to anyone who questions the continued survival of indie publishing. mclennan is proof: if you want to do it, you can. Take a look and subscribe.

Broken Pencil: Did you ever anticipate being around this long when you started above/ground in 1993?

rob mclennan: I don’t think there’s any way I could have seen it going this long. But honestly, I wasn’t looking that far ahead when I was all of 23. How would or could I have known? I just kept doing and making and discovering new things to attempt.

I’ve been telling myself for years that once it’s no longer fun, I’ll stop doing it. This applies equally to above/ground press, the Ottawa small press book fair (twice a year since fall 1994), The Factory Reading Series (which turned 20 years old in January 2013), the Ottawa poetry annual ottawater, Chaudiere Books, the dozens of reviews and interviews I daily post to the blog, and so many of the other things I seemingly do for so very little reward. So far, I haven’t seen a single reason to not continue doing any and all of the above. It’s all still enormously fun. I’ve been doing so many of these things for so long that I consider them essential elements of my writing process and experience. It becomes difficult to separate one from the other.

You’ve spoken in a blog post about there being a larger arc for the press – one that has correlated with your time spent as writer-in-residence at U of A, as well as the focus on local authors, new authors, national and established authors. How has your “arc” manifested itself, and how has it deviated from what you initially imagined?

I think the core ideas for the press have been there from the beginning, if not the near-beginning, and these ideas have simply expanded, or become better articulated and executed.  In so many ways, everything I’ve done over the years as editor, organizer and/or publisher has come from that initial spark of above/ground, expanding further and further out.

above/ground is known – among other things – as having an uncanny ability to divine emerging writers who seem to be on the verge of something bigger. How do you define that feeling when you choose the writers you wish to work with? Are you able to see their future “arc” of development?

I look for writing that intrigues, surprises and/or inspires. I want writing that makes me slightly jealous that I didn’t compose it myself. Arc, as such, becomes a difficult thing to define other than simply working to continue those things that I’ve been doing, and be better at them. When I was first aware of Stephanie Bolster’s writing back in 1994 or 1995, I knew she was really on to something. My chapbook offer to her was almost immediate. But not everyone that catches my eye ends up going places. But that’s okay too. One has to have faith, I suppose.

Over the past few years, I’ve been excited watching new writers develop, and I feel very fortunate to have been able to offer help in my own way to their continued development. I don’t know if I can see a particular future arc of development for anyone, but I can certainly spot potential every so often, and am willing to be a next step for someone who might really need it. I also want to be able to provide a space for risky work, writing that might not really fit anywhere else. Already for 2013, I’m publishing new works by a couple of first time authors, including Ottawa poets Abby Paige and Brecken Hancock, and Vancouver poet (and former Broken Pencil Deathmatch contestant) Jordan Abel, none of whom I’d even heard of a few months prior.

Honestly, there’s nothing more exciting than finding great work in a random journal, and that immediate impulse to see more: (does the poet have) a book I should be reading? A chapbook? And if not, how might I get a hold of them to possibly request one?

I consider a part of what I do to be completely open to new writing and new writers, knowing full well that perhaps what I have to offer is less helpful to someone more established, but, by taking on a writer’s first or second chapbook manuscript, it might be the first time their work is promoted so specifically. I would hope that a chapbook through above/ground might make it slightly less difficult for those writers to get work accepted into journals, perhaps have some readings in various corners, and even start getting that first manuscript out into the world. With chapbooks through above/ground, I would hope that Hancock and Abel’s first books then become anticipatory, for those who might not have heard of either of those writers previously.

Can you tell us a little more about the anniversary events you have planned this year?

It’s slightly too early to talk about, but I’m working on a follow-up to Groundswell: the best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Fredericton NB: Broken Jaw Press, 2003) to cover the press’ second decade. I’m also talking to Sean Wilson at the Ottawa International Writers Festival about doing something at the fall edition of the fest. They were good enough to host a launch for the tenth anniversary, as well as a launch for our opening salvo of Chaudiere Books titles, so they’ve been a great support. I’d say watch the website for details of events happening in August (the press’ official anniversary, which usually includes two to four new titles launched) and October (during the writers festival). Basically: stay tuned.

Are there any releases this year that you are particularly looking forward to and would like to highlight for us?

So far, 2013 includes new chapbooks by Abby Paige, Jordan Abel, Brecken Hancock, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Stephen Cain, Wanda O’Connor and Gil McElroy, among others. I produced a chapbook by American poet Deborah Poe last year, and she’s coming up to do her first Ottawa reading at the end of March, alongside Wanda O’Connor, launching her first above/ground press chapbook (I’ve been trying to get a chapbook manuscript out of her for almost a decade).

Poet and curator Gil McElroy will be launching his chapbook Twentieth as part of The Factory Reading Series’ lecture series at Ottawa’s third annual poetry festival, VERSeFest. I’ve long been an admirer and supporter of McElroy’s work, and this will be McElroy’s fourth above/ground press chapbook, going back to 1995.

Recently, I finally received a chapbook manuscript from British Columbia poet David Phillips, which is enormously exciting for me. I’ve been trying to get a manuscript out of Phillips since I met him in Vancouver in 2004. We have yet to hammer the small mound into a workable manuscript. 

~

In addition to above/ground press, rob mclennan is the author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2011, and was long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. His most recent titles include the poetry collections Songs for little sleep (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012), grief notes: (BlazeVOX [books], 2012), and A (short) history of l. (BuschekBooks, 2011). He’s also at the helm of Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review, seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater. He spent the 2007-08 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com. This fall, Chaudiere Books will publish his collection of short, short stories, The Uncertainty Principle.

new from above/ground press: Other Brief Discourses, by Abby Paige

Other Brief Discourses

Abby Paige
$4

I. Embarking

Should my point of departure be the dust

to which I will return? Or the water of which

I am composed? Or

I’m told the poet asked, are birds free

from the chains of the skyway?

So I depart from air.

One accustomed to the sea takes not long

to trust air’s buoyancy.

So let breath be

the place we start from. Let the sun

rise in our wake and our ship shudder

as we descend through cloud.

The river below, a forked black tongue

darting through the snow, I named

for the patron of cooks, put to death on a grill.

The maps I drew four centuries ago

I compare with land from the vantage of birds

and am not dissatisfied.

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

Abby Paige is a poet, performer, and freelance writer whose work has appeared in the United States and Canada, most recently in ottawater #9. Her solo show, Piecework: When We Were French, has toured in New England and Quebec. She received her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is a former Fulbright scholar.

[Abby Paige launches Other Brief Discourses in Ottawa at TheFactory Reading Series on February 22 alongside Brecken Hancock, Hugh Thomas and Michael Blouin]

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 Factory Reading Series presents: Hugh Thomas, Michael Blouin, Brecken Hancock + Abby Paige,

The Factory Reading Series presents:

Hugh Thomas (Fredericton)
Michael Blouin (Kemptville)
Brecken Hancock (Ottawa)
+ Abby Paige (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, February 22, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale)

Hugh Thomas lives in Fredericton, where he is a professor of mathematics at the University of New Brunswick. Chapbooks of his poetry have been published by Paper Kite Press (Heart badly buried by five shovels, 2009), BookThug (Mutations, 2004), and above/ground press (Opening the Dictionary, 2011), which was shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Franzlations, the imaginary Kafka parables, a book of variations on Kafka texts, a joint project with Gary Barwin and Craig Conley, was published by New star Books in 2011.

Michael Blouin‘s critically acclaimed first novel Chase and Haven (Coach House) was a finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and won the 2009 ReLit Award. In 2007 his first collected poetry I’m not going to lie to you (Pedlar Press) was a finalist for the Lampman Scott Award. In 2011 Pedlar Press released Wore Down Trust, which won the Lampman Poetry Award in 2012. He was a finalist for the 2010 CBC Literary Awards and his work has been published in many literary magazines includingDescant, Arc, The Antigonish Review, Event, Queen’s Quarterly, The New Quarterly, and The Fiddlehead. He is currently completing work on his second novel and is represented internationally by Westwood Creative Artists. His collaborative chapbook with Elizabeth Rainer, let lie/ (above/ground press, 2011), was shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award.

Brecken Hancock's [pictured, above] poetry and essays have appeared in Grain, CV2, The Fiddlehead, PRISM, Arc, and Studies in Canadian Literature. Originally from Middle Lake, Saskatchewan, she's since lived in Fredericton, Reykjavik, and Kyoto, but she's also been home to hold residencies at The Bruno Arts Bank, a converted historical building in rural Saskatchewan. Her first full-length manuscript of poems, Broom Broom, is forthcoming with Coach House Books. She lives and walks dogs in Ottawa.

She will be launching her chapbook The Art of Plumbing (above/ground press).

Abby Paige is a poet, performer, and freelance writer whose work has appeared in the United States and Canada, most recently in ottawater #9. Her solo show, Piecework: When We Were French, has toured in New England and Quebec. She received her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is a former Fulbright scholar.

She will be launching her chapbook Other Brief Discourses (above/ground press).

some author activity: Ladouceur, Anstee, Ball, Pirie, mclennan + The Peter F Yacht Club,

One of Ben Ladcouceur's poems has been nominated by the editors of Prism International for a Pushcart Prize; Cameron Anstee wrote a nice review of some recent chapbooks by above/ground press author and small press legend Nelson Ball; both rob mclennan and Pearl Pirie participated in "the next big thing" blog self-interview, and both read in Ottawa in January as part of the A B Series (Pirie on the 10th, and mclennan on the 29th). And there are still spaces in rob mclennan's upcoming poetry workshops!

And don't forget our annual Peter F Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta on the 29th!

Have you subscribed for the above/ground big 20th anniversary subscriptions? New publications forthcoming from Abby Paige, Jordan Abel and Joshua Marie Wilkinson, among others. Just what might 2013 bring?

Happy Seasonal things! From all of us to all of you, there;