new from above/ground press: Rushing Dusk, by Pearl Pirie

Pearl Pirie
Rushing Dusk
$5

tromping

along cedar fence lines
the rails, punky, grey and mossed

against my mud-spattered boot
any pause is a footrest.

what stands bleak on the rise
of ground, against unsettled clouds?

crusted lines not quite
darkened into a silhouette,

tangled in long grasses—
a model of use and hope —

the rusted plow no longer turns soil
but didn't risk turning into a sword

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

cover illustration: Rose McLennan

Pearl Pirie lives slowly in rural Quebec. A queer, seemingly permanently concussed, settler on unceded land of the Anishnaabe, she is the author of footlights (Radiant Press, 2020) and a few other books and many chapbooks. This chapbook is a second published part of a full length collection that hopefully will be looking to move out soon. You can find her on a bunch of socials— Instagram, X, blueskies, Patreon, Substack and at www.pearlpirie.com.

This is Pirie’s sixth chapbook with above/ground press, after the oath in the boathouse (2008), vertigoheel for the dilly (2014), today’s woods (2014), sex in sevens (2016), and Eldon, letters (2019). Report from the Pirie Society, Vol. 1 No. 1, appeared in 2023.

[Pearl Pirie will be launching Rushing Dusk in Ottawa on August 10 as part of the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading, alongside Mahaila Smith, Gil McElroy, Chris Banks, Carlos A. Pittella 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

new from above/ground press: Autobiography, by rob mclennan

Autobiography
rob mclennan
$5

Autobiography of green

1.

Each poem, at a particular time. A line of versets,
iambic feet. The children        , dither: compass

the backyard. Their summer playhouse, builds.

They wait, they wait.

Their perpendicular step.


2.

To speak of origins: the homestead,

iambic clay, the creek’s

interminable motion. Striating fields, the fallow. Ice age
carving smith out of the ground.

Fluted points: such tenuous association. A drop
of glacial lakes.


3.

Precambrian shield. The first impulse, is
to sit. My         morning desk, at first light,

coffee. Too wide, to reach silence,

speechless reserve. If there     remain gods
to smite, to smother. How much might

that cost me? Where

my children patter, stray. Such danger, as far
as they might run.


4.

Parenting: helicopter, helicopter,

submarine. This glacial, rain. In order to write,

I write             this line

of thermal bridge.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

cover artwork: Rose McLennan, summer 2021

Notes: Autobiography is excerpted from the in-progress manuscript “the book of sentences,” a thread that continues back into the as-yet-unpublished “Book of Magazine Verse” and further, into the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, spring 2022). The poem “Burning the dead grass” folds in a line or two of Monty Reid’s poem “Burning the Back Issues,” lifted from his flat side (Red Deer Press, 1998). “The Garden” is one of a trio of responses to equally-titled poems by Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, from her debut collection, A Brief History of Fruit (University of Akron Press, 2020), and is dedicated to her and Alex, and their summer 2021 relocation to Ottawa.

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 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent poetry titles include A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019), Life sentence, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019) and the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics and Touch the Donkey. He is editor of my (small press) writing day, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. In spring 2020, he won ‘best pandemic beard’ from Coach House Books via Twitter, of which he is extremely proud (and mentions constantly). 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

This is mclennan’s sixty-fifth above/ground press chapbook, following the collaborative SOME LEAVES (with Gary Barwin; 2020), Twenty-one stories, (2020), Poems for Lunch Poems for SFU (2020), Somewhere in-between / cloud (2019), Study of a fox (2018), snow day (2018) and It’s still winter (2017).

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

some author activity: Mohammadi, Wilkinson, Ross, Spinosa, Niespodziany + Hunter,

Khashayar Mohammadi has won First Place in the Vallum Award for Poetry 2021; Joshua Marie Wilkinson has work in Bennington Review; Stuart Ross has new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time, as does Dani Spinosa and Benjamin Niespodziany, and Carrie Hunter is even interviewed!

some author activity: Barkman, Pirie, Prime + Christakos,

Carla Barkman (the poet formerly known as Carla Milo) is currently being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Pearl Pirie is interviewed by Bill Arnott; Tom Prime is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Margaret Christakos has some new work up at Canthius.

some author activity: Boyle, O'Reilly, Dennis, Pirie, Trivedi + Solomon,

Frances Boyle has been on fire (again) lately, with new work up at MookyChick, The Wild Word and Vox Viola; Nathanael O'Reilly has a new piece as part of the "Talking Poetics" series at the ottawa poetry newsletter ; Pearl Pirie has posted a short piece on Michael Dennis; Amish Trivedi is being interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; and Misha Solomon has started a newsletter of weekly poems, some gay poems, which you should totally sign up for.

some author activity: Eleftherion, Cooley, Pirie, Bowering + Earl,

Melissa Eleftherion has new work up at Vallejo Poetry Society; Dennis Cooley is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews; Pearl Pirie is interviewed at the Chaudiere Books blog; George Bowering is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Amanda Earl has a visual poem in the poetry pause series via The League of Canadian Poets.

some author activity: o'brien, Robertson + Melançon,

forthcoming author katie o'brien has a poem up in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Elena Betros López interviews Lisa Robertson over at Cordite; and Jérôme Melançon is interviewed over at poetry mini interviews.

some author activity: Ross, Eleftherion, Aigen, Campanello,

Stuart Ross posted a nice piece over at his blog (including his acceptance speech) on winning this year's Harbourfront Prize; Melissa Eleftherion has new work and a statement up as part of the Spotlight series; forthcoming author Razielle Aigen has some new work up at Train : a poetry journal; and Kimberly Campanello and Léonce Lupette have a collaboration in the Tuesday poem series over at the dusie blog.

Marthe Reed : d. April 10, 2018

American poet, editor, publisher and above/ground press author Marthe Reed died earlier today, after suffering a stroke yesterday. I'm rather stunned by it, as so many are (and thank you to Laura Mullen, who gave me a head's up). Condolences to Michael, and their two children. Here's a photo of Marthe with intern Rose, during our family visit to their house in Syracuse, just over a year ago. I'll write up a proper obit soon, on my own blog. But for now, there is this.

the peter f. yacht club regatta, 2013;

While we usually hold a Christmas reading/party/regatta, hosted by The Peter F. Yacht Club, somewhere between Christmas and New Year, this year Christine and myself hosted a small pot-luck. In part to show off the house and our new five-week-old Rose, it was also a sign of our inability to easily leave the house; we thought, why not bring the party to us, instead?

With roughly a third of those invited unable to make it, we still managed to host some twenty people or more in our little house, as I spent the day baking in preparation. Pearl Pirie posted photos of the cake I made for such over at her food blog, as well as the creamy spaghetti squash primavera and the asparagus and white bean salad I prepared (the fourth photo of her quartet I wasn't responsible for). Given that at least one of our group is vegan and has a gluten allergy, I spent more than a week online seeking out recipes.

During the day, I also prepared a lovely beef stew, and an apple/pear (Japanese pear) crisp. And why is there a cow on the cake? Well, I couldn't find any yacht/nautical cake-y decorations at any of the dollar-stores I visited; and who doesn't love cows?

[A lovely wooden item gifted to us by the Piries] We were able to host a ton of Yacht Club regulars and irregulars, including Monty Reid, Sarah Hill and their Frances, Brecken Hancock, Amanda and Charles Earl, Pearl and Brian Pirie, Sandra Ridley, Roland Prevost and Janice Tokar, Vivian Vavassis, Rhonda Douglas, Marilyn Irwin and plenty of others. I could barely keep track! And, given the distraction of food, house and baby, I took barely any photographs. We stayed up far too late, had so much food and wine that we ended with more than we began, and never even got to the readings. Perhaps next year we'll be able to be public again, and Rose will allow us out of the house long enough to host our regular reading/regatta/party back at The Carleton Tavern!

And who knows -- now that we have a house and are beginning to settle, we may even be gearing up for regular meetings again in 2014; perhaps even a new issue? I'm already gearing up to a whole slew of new above/ground press chapbooks by Camille Martin, Nicholas Lea, Hugh Thomas, David Phillips and more; keep watching this space!

season's greetings and happy yule from above/ground press,