Mahaila Smith wins this year's John Newlove Poetry Award

Congratulations to Ottawa poet (and above/ground press author) Mahaila Smith, who last night was announced as the winner of the 21st annual John Newlove Poetry Award (hosted by the ottawa international writers festival; catch the recorded livestream here, in case you missed it), as run through and by Bywords.ca, with this year's judge Toronto poet Jim Johnstone. Very nice! From her author biography: Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag. They like learning theory and writing speculative poetry. Their recent chapbooks include Water-Kin (Metatron Press 2024) and Enter the Hyperreal (above/ground press 2024). Their novelette in verse, Seed Beetle, is forthcoming with Stelliform Press. As Jim's judge's comments read:

"In this year's John Newlove Award winning poem word building becomes world building, a powerful meditation deftly stitched together with a seamless, serotonin-inducing hand."

The annual John Newlove Poetry award, launched in the fall of 2004, commemorates the honest, poignant and well-written poetry of John Newlove, an Ottawa resident for almost twenty years and poet who died in 2003. Smith won for her poem "Ugly, Red: A Cento," and now has the opportunity for a chapbook of her work to appear through Bywords.ca next year! And did you hear that another above/ground press author, BC-based poet Dale Tracy, was the honourable mention for this year's award for her poem "Run"? Oh, what a year this has been.

some author activity: Solomon, Kemp-Gee, Novak, Robinson, Smith + Wilkins,

Misha Solomon has a new poem up at Frozen Sea, and is also running some poetry workshops in Montreal this fall; Meghan Kemp-Gee has a new poem up at Trampset; JoAnna Novak and Elizabeth Robinson have new work up at Action, Spectacle; Mahaila Smith has new work up in the new issue of Polar Borealis; and Grant Wilkins is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Brenner, Adams, Smith, Pirie, McElroy, Pittella, Banks + Rhodes,

Summer Brenner has an essay up at Literary Hub; Carrie Olivia Adams was recently featured on the podcast Plain Reading; Mahaila Smith has a new poem up at the DOG TEETH newsletter; and Pearl Pirie offers her report on the recent above/ground press 31st anniversary reading/event/launch, featuring readings by herself, alongside Gil McElroy, Carlos A. Pittella, Mahaila Smith, Chris Banks and Shane Rhodes!

report: the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading/launch/party!

You probably already know, but I hosted an above/ground press thirty-first anniversary reading/launch/party at RedBird last night, featuring readings and chapbook launches by Chris Banks (Kitchener), Mahaila Smith (Ottawa), Gil McElroy (North Bay), Pearl Pirie (rural QC) Carlos A. Pittella (Montreal) and Shane Rhodes (Ottawa). Anniversaries are the best! And don't forget that the press is running a big anniversary sale until the end of this month.

It was good to have another in-person anniversary event! Do you remember my report from last year's anniversary reading? Or the 2019 one? I mean, I think these reports help keep such events in memory. Remember the twenty-fifth anniversary event (when the t-shirts were introduced, for example) or the twenty-third anniversary event (including the Toronto event that same year) or the nineteenth anniversary event? So many events! Wishing I'd actually archived the big tenth anniversary event as well, but that was well before the full advent of blogs, after all (well, five minutes before all of that). I had ten readers, two musical acts (including Emm Gryner) and CBC Radio's Alan Neal hosting, produced by Elaina Martin, who went on to found and produce Ottawa's infamous Westfest. Remember that? I don't even remember all who I had to read for that event. Michael Dennis, certainly, along with (I think) Stephen Brockwell, AJ Dolman, Colin Morton, John Barton and Karen Massey. Who else? All I can find online is this reference to the event via Bywords.

Thanks very much to RedBird, including bartenders Josephine and Taylor, who were kind and attentive hosts, and Christine McNair (above, with Grant Wilkins) who ran both the door and the book table. And, honestly, if you want music lessons or your kids want music lessons, check out RedBird. Our wee Aoife has been doing ukulele lessons there for a while and she absolutely loves it.

It was a great crowd! And good to see further above/ground press authors, including Stuart Ross (did you know his own Proper Tales Press is only four years away from fifty? did you see the website we built when his press turned forty?), Karen Massey, Stephen Brockwell, Grant Wilkins and bpNichol chapbook award-winner Jason Christie! There were a couple of folk unable to attend due to Covid (mild, at least), which was frustrating, but it was great to see Margo LaPierre, Brian Pirie, Susan Atkinson, Manahil Bandukwala, Salem Paige, Allison Armstrong and Helen Robertson! Very nice, also, to see a whole stack of folk in the audience that I didn't actually know. I mean, that's good too, yes?

The first reader was Ottawa poet Mahaila Smith, launching their above/ground press debut (and third chapbook overall), Enter the Hyperreal (2024). There is a sharpness to Smith's work, and anyone who references the work of the late American poet Barbara Guest is very much applying good judgement. Check out Mahaila's recent essay on the chapbook, here.

Latinx poet Carlos A. Pittella came in from Montreal (and was flying somewhere else ridiculously early the following morning), and had such a marvellous, gestural energy to his presence, and to his work. I was first introduced to his work through a recommendation from above/ground press author Misha Solomon, who was introduced to me through a recommendation from above/ground press author Sarah Burgoyne, who was introduced to me through a recommendation from Stuart Ross. Thank you, all! Carlos was launching his first English-language chapbook, footnotes after Lorca (2024), a chapbook with a dark and layered undertone, composed and performed with an absolute joy of playful language. Check out Carlos' recent essay on the chapbook, here.

It is strange to think that Kitchener, Ontario poet and editor Chris Banks and I hadn't actually interacted in-person for twenty years or so, since around the publication of his first full-length collection. The poems of his above/ground press debut, Tiny Grass Is Dreaming (2024), displays such a thoughtful, meditative sharpness (and apparently he's been writing up a storm lately). Check out Chris' recent essay on the chapbook, here.

One of my long-time favourites, as you probably already know, is Gil McElroy, a poet currently living in North Bay, Ontario. I've been publishing his work since the mid-1990s, don't you know. He said that his new chapbook, his tenth above/ground press title, Small Consonants (2024), wasn't meant to be read aloud, so he read from some previous work, including poems referencing the Perseids.

There is such lovely, small detail in the poems of Pearl Pirie's latest above/ground press title, her sixth, Rushing Dusk (2024), a small chapbook featuring cover artwork by my middle daughter, Rose. Check out Pearl's essay on the chapbook, here. And you saw the festschrift we recently produced on her work as well, yes?

Did you hear that Ottawa poet (originally from Alberta) Shane Rhodes and his family are moving to Australia in a couple of weeks? It means that this was most likely his last Ottawa reading before they catch their flight. He read from his above/ground press debut, It's Here All the Beauty I Told You About (2024), a chapbook I am very pleased about, as I've been itching to publish his work since his full-length debut introduced me to his work, some two decades ago. His current work-in-progress (which includes the chapbook), explores Alberta/western mythology, imagery and collage, and the death of his mother,

Thank you to everyone who came out to help celebrate! And what might the next year bring? Thirty-one years, nearly fourteen hundred publications, hundreds of authors and three celebratory anthologies (including the third that appeared last fall through Invisible Publishing), among other schemes, blogs, events and ephemera. As you can see from the sidebar, I've a whole mound of forthcoming titles through the press, currently working on chapbook titles by authors including Vik Shirley, Alice Burdick, ryan fitzpatrick, Peter Jaeger, John Levy, alex benedict, Ryan Skrabalak, Scott Inniss and David Phillips, among others. I did offer last night that anyone who wished to subscribe to the press from this moment right now through to the end of 2025 could for the low price of $100 (for American addresses, $100 US), which I'm willing to offer here as well, an offer good until the end of this month (just send me an email: rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com). I mean, I'm producing some sixty to eighty chapbooks a year, that's a good deal, isn't it? Who knows what might come next?

some author activity: Levy, Webb, Robinson, Banks, Naughton + Smith,

forthcoming author John Levy is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Lindsey Webb is interviewed in the '12 or 20 questions' series; Elizabeth Robinson has new work up at Conjunctions; Chris Banks has a new essay up at The Woodlot; Katie Naughton has new work up at Still Point; and Mahaila Smith is interviewed via Chaudiere Books.

some author activity: Ballard, Smith, Kaminski, Trivedi + Houbolt,

the livestream video for Kevin Opstedal and Micah Ballard's July 21, 2024 reading at Bird & Beckett Books, San Francisco is now online; Mahaila Smith is interviewed over at News & Press from The Future Fire; Megan Kaminski has poems from a new project forthcoming in Plant Perspectives; Amish Trivedi read some poems as part of the Disaster Research Center 60th Anniversary Workshop at the University of Delaware, now up on YouTube; and Kyla Houbolt has two new poems and a write-up newly posted at Moist Poetry Journal.

new from above/ground press: Enter the Hyperreal, by Mahaila Smith

Enter the Hyperreal
Mahaila Smith
$5

Put on your shoes or else you need to leave
after Barbara Guest


Stilted bones for your birthday
are an expected guest
present in the evening decanter
poured between me,
the mist and my sister.
Sparrows are my confidantes.
Butterflies are my enemies.
My sister is alright,
she isn’t a butterfly.
My blood is absent
when strangers ask for it
and then pools around my nose
when I am asleep and pretending
to be shadow being shadow
or the moon being the sea
or the sea making phone calls.
Eve was my best friend
before she met her boyfriend.
Now archaeologists trowel after
her tire residue
and reel cosmological alignments
between discarded burger wrappers.
I sit here, with entomological consultants
and drink nettle tea.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover artwork/design: Leona Smith

Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag. They like learning theory and writing speculative poetry. Their debut chapbook, Claw Machine, was published by Anstruther Press in 2020. Their second chapbook, Water-Kin was published by Metatron Press in 2024. Their novelette in verse, Seed Beetle, is forthcoming with Stelliform Press. You can find more of their work on their website: mahailasmith.ca.

[Mahaila Smith will be launching Enter the Hyperreal on August 10 as part of the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading, alongside Gil McElroy, Carlos A. Pittella, Chris Banks, Pearl Pirie and Shane Rhodes; tickets available here]

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

the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading/launch/party : August 10 2024 : Red Bird Live,

: tickets available here :