some author activity: Clayton, Drake, Kolewe, Young, Pirie + mclennan,

forthcoming author Conyer Clayton has a poem up at the Chaudiere Books blog as part of National Poetry Month, as do Kristina Drake and R. Kolewe; new English language Ottawa Poet Laureate Deanna Young responds to April's wash of snow for CBC Radio Ottawa; Pearl Pirie has some new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time, where rob mclennan is also interviewed.

above/ground press 25th anniversary essay: Kristina Drake

This is the nineteenth 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 first met rob when I was a Creative Writing student at Concordia. I was a couple of months pregnant but not yet showing; rob was giving a poetry reading and my professor had encouraged the class to attend. The reading was held in a nondescript meeting room at Concordia. There were lines of chairs facing a podium, and there was rob, a very poet-looking poet with long hair, reading from his book of poems. It all seemed such a marvelous accomplishment – that I was there, a creative writing student, and that such things as poets publishing books existed. rob seemed to be “one of our own” – not one of the distant writers I’d read and studied. This perception helped me imagine that going from “here” to “there” was, indeed, possible. This thing rob was doing was something people did, something that could be done, that perhaps I could do.

I was a little star-struck, and so it’s not surprising that this experience made quite an impression on me. What is surprising, perhaps, is that it still seems significant to me today. The sense of collegiality, of camaraderie that I felt at this first introduction to rob and the above/ground press was energizing. rob made poetry and the idea of being a poet legitimate, tangible and attainable.  I remember this reading in relation to my pregnancy because, of course, events become connected in these ways in one’s memory, but also because that baby is now a young adult, and it seems to me that rob has nurtured the above/ground press and its community in the same way one raises a child.

Not long after that reading, I subscribed to the press and sporadically an envelope stuffed with poems would appear in the mail. It would arrive torn at the corners and taped to stop it splitting open. Receiving those packages was always a small envy-tinged thrill, but soon enough, the question became how to store them. The incredible volume of work the press has published over the years is truly impressive. Although I subscribed for only a few years, I have dozens of above/ground chapbooks on my shelves and a banker’s box full to bursting of “POEM” broadsides. Unfortunately, a banker’s box is a storage solution that does not lend its contents well to casual reading, and so, at one point, I considered getting rid of the broadsides but that seemed sacrilegious. So I’ve kept the box, carting it from apartment to apartment and house to house, and then from room to room within the house until finally, recently, the broadsides have made their way onto my shelves. Every time I’ve had to move that box and have opened it to see what it held, I’ve felt something akin to nostalgia at the sight of all the POEMs printed on the bright paper. Ah, yes, these! I’d think and tuck the top back on the box leaving the POEMs undisturbed. They remind me, still, of how I felt at the beginning of writing, before children and work consumed all my energy, before the years when I stopped writing altogether; they spark hope and possibility, still.

Over the years, the POEMs have acquired another level of significance. They are part of the history of Canadian poetry, a record of the growth of a community and of the development of individual writers, an inspiration for writers to come. This is no mean feat for a tiny press.

Even more valuable and immediate to me is rob’s unwavering support of poets and writers – new or established, local or not – and his ability to encourage, mentor and nurture this talented community. I want to say that rob is relentless, but that word carries a slight negative connotation that I wouldn’t want to imply. He’s supportive and persistent and, somehow, he manages, with his regular email inquiries, to nudge and push me in a way that I feel, included and valued. In the years when I gave up on my writing, rob did not. The above/ground press kept on publishing poems and poets, building writers and community, and when I was ready to return, rob and above/ground press were there to welcome me.

Last August, the press published a chapbook of mine and I read at the press’ 24^th anniversary alongside other above/ground authors, including Stephanie Bolster, the professor who had encouraged me to attend rob’s reading close to 20 years ago. As full circles come, this one was pretty special: there I was, doing the thing.

For me, above/ground press is and will continue to be a beacon of possibility. It reminds me, when I’m in danger of forgetting, that I want to write, that I should write. And then I do.  

 

Kristina Drake writes and edits in the wilderness of East Hawkesbury, Ontario. Her poems have previously appeared in Carte Blanche, Soliloquies and Yalla!, and as a Tuesday poem on Dusie.

 

Drake is the author of an above/ground press “poem” broadside for her poem “Sex at 31” (#226, 2005), as well as the chapbook Ornithology (2017).

 

some author activity: Archer, Drake, Flemmer, Beaulieu + Siklosi,

[a fraction of the above/ground press home archive] Sacha Archer has a new essay up at my (small press) writing day, as does Kristina Drake; Kyle Flemmer has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at dusie; "Housepress/no press at 20: a talk by Calgary poet and publisher Derek Beaulieu," which recently occurred at SFU, is now online at the SFU website; and forthcoming (spring) above/ground press author Kate Siklosi has a new essay (also) at my (small press) writing day.

new from above/ground press: Ornithology, by Kristina Drake

Ornithology
Kristina Drake
$5

Today, I sat perched atop a cold bench, my feet on the seat, my bum on the narrow back, surrounded by deep snow reflecting the whitest light.
On the frozen lake, fishermen dipped their rods, a pickup truck drove along the track across the bay, and the wind was still.

Somewhere off to the side, my husband crouched with his camera to capture the detail of a leaf.

I looked around – at pale lichen on a tree trunk, the undulating crust of snow – until the brightness made my eyes water and squint. I tilted my head back, closed my eyes and let the sun warm my face.

From not far off, a robin sang and took flight.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Kristina Drake writes and edits in the wilderness of East Hawkesbury, Ontario. Her poems have previously appeared in Carte Blanche, Soliloquies and Yalla!, as an above/ground press broadside, and as a Tuesday poem on Dusie.

[Produced for the above/ground press 24th anniversary reading/launch/party! Thursday, August 31, 2017]

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

the above/ground press 24th anniversary reading/launch/party!

above/ground press presents readings and other such by an array of poets:

Stephanie Bolster (Montreal)
Adele Graf (Ottawa)
Kristina Drake (East Hawkesbury)
Amanda Earl (Ottawa)
+ rob mclennan (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by above/ground press author and Apt 9 Press editor/publisher Cameron Anstee
7:30pm door/8pm reading
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Backdrop Food & Drink
160 Metcalfe Street, Ottawa
http://www.thebackdrop.ca/

$5 at the door; includes a copy of a recent above/ground press title

Stephanie Bolster has published four books of poetry, the first of which, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General's and the Gerald Lampert Awards in 1998. Her latest book, A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth (Brick Books, 2011) was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award. Work from her current manuscript-in-progress, Long Exposure, from which this chapbook is also drawn, was a finalist for the Canada Writes/CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and co-editor of Penned: Zoo Poems, she was born in Vancouver and teaches creative writing at Concordia University in Montréal.

She will be launching the chapbook GHOSTS.

This is Stephanie Bolster’s fourth above/ground press chapbook, after the original Three Bloody Words (1996), Biodome (2006) and Three Bloody Words: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2016). She also appeared in the fifth issue of the long poem magazine STANZAS (April 1995).

Adele Graf’s poems have appeared in many Canadian journals including The Antigonish Review, CV2, The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead, Room and Vallum. Her first poetry collection, math for couples, was published this spring by Guernica Editions.

She will be launching the chapbook a Baltic Friday early in grey.

Kristina Drake writes and edits in the wilderness of East Hawkesbury, Ontario. Her poems have previously appeared in Carte Blanche, Soliloquies and Yalla!, as an above/ground press broadside, and as a Tuesday poem on Dusie.

She will be launching the chapbook Ornithology.

Amanda Earl is an Ottawa writer, publisher and visual poet. She’s the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. More information is available at AmandaEarl.com.

She will be launching the chapbook Lady Lazarus Redux.

This is Earl’s fifth chapbook with above/ground press, after Eleanor (2007), The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman (2008), Sex First & Then A Sandwich (2012) and A Book of Saints (2015).

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry collection A perimeter (New Star Books, 2016). He has two poetry collections forthcoming: Life Sentence (Flat Singles Press, 2018) and Household items (Salmon Poetry, 2018). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Christine McNair), The Garneau Review, seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics, Touch the Donkey and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater. He is “Interviews Editor” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse, a regular contributor to the Ploughshares blog, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 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

He will be launching the chapbook It's still winter.

This is mclennan's millionth chapbook with above/ground press. There are too many to list.