some author activity: mclennan, Armantrout, Fagan, drystek, Tate + Schapira,

rob mclennan is interviewed by Megan Nichols as part of the What We Aim To Do podcast; Rae Armantrout has a poem, draft and short write-up at underbelly; Cary Fagan has started doing chapbook reviews again over at his blog; nina jane drystek has a concrete sound poetry recording newly up at the ex-puritan; and Bronwen Tate did a short substack write-up on what Kate Schapira has been working on the past few years.

Jaclyn Desforges reviews nina jane drystek's Missing Matrilineal (2023) and Sophia Magliocca's Girl Gives Long-Fingered Self-Portrait (2023) in Hamilton Review of Books

Hamilton writer Jaclyn Desforges offers first reviews for nina jane drystek's Missing Matrilineal (2023) and Sophia Magliocca's Girl Gives Long-Fingered Self-Portrait (2023) as part of a three-title review (alongside Ben Robinson's The Book of Benjamin), "The Presence of Absence," over at Hamilton Review of Books. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here, or excerpted below. As Desforges writes:

When I chose the collections to juxtapose for this review, I absolutely did not look for connections in advance. I chose two chapbooks that appealed to me: Missing Matrilineal by nina jane drystek and Girl Gives Long-Fingered Self Portrait by Sophia Magliocca, both published in 2023 by above/ground press. But I was immediately struck by the pervasive feeling of absence in drystek’s collection: The first poem, “i haven’t found the ladle yet,” begins with the image of an empty bowl. drystek creates a portrait of memory, loss and grief by focusing on what remains after a beloved person’s death: “the row of cedars he planted,” she writes. “the quilts she sewed.” drystek’s poems are spacious and vivid, dancing between English, Polish and French. We see wallpaper curls and cupboard-aged whiskey, imagine borscht on our tongues.

In the final and longest poem, “my second sister makes her apparition,” the speaker addresses her sister Isabelle who, as we learn later in the acknowledgements, “lived for the briefest of moments.” Still reeling from The Book of Benjamin, I was struck by the lines “a girl unborn / est une femme fantôme,” “surely there is dust that remembers,” “a body that wasn’t,” and “name that is.” This collection is intimate and tender – full of grief and bittersweetness. It’s about death, which is another way of saying it’s about love.  

While drystek’s chapbook is a collage of objects left behind, Magliocca’s is, as the title indicates, a self-portrait. In the first movement of the collection, the speaker lists details about herself – “I’m a fast talker slow walker average daughter,” Magliocca writes. “I’m a good swimmer for three strokes.” The first poem, “Note,” is made up of a single stanza, but as Magliocca goes on, the poems begin to break apart – the next three contain four quatrains, and as the speaker goes on, revealing increasingly vulnerable details, Magliocca adds white space and staggered line breaks. “I spend my evenings in the bathroom / staring at that face / stretched across the chrome drain,” she writes. By page 11 of the chapbook, the repeated word “memories” snakes across the page, and on page 17, the second movement of the collection begins with what the speaker is afraid to carry: “big boxes up / narrow staircases / rusty knives on flat trays.” Then, after a long gap, the word babies appears neatly in the centre of the page. The final poem begins, “I know nine months is 274 days.” It appears on the page like a series of waves, or the curves of a body, and goes on to explore the complex feelings surrounding the speaker’s abortion. “I know your would-be birthday,” Magliocca writes. “fire sign like your father / imagine soft curls / auburn.” And there again, the immovable presence of absence – that blank space of might-have-been.

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #33 : 2024 VERSeFest Special,

The Peter F Yacht Club #33
2024 VERSeFest Special
lovingly hand-crafted, folded, stapled, edited and carried around in bags of envelopes by rob mclennan,
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2024 participants, including Jennifer Baker, Manahil Bandukwala, Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, nina jane drystek, Klara du Plessis, Amanda Earl, Anita Lahey, IAN MARTIN, rob mclennan, James Moran, Pearl Pirie, Jaclyn Piudik, Monty Reid, Sandra Ridley, Marjorie Silverman, Madeleine Stratford, D.S. Stymeist, Derek Webster and Grant Wilkins,

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the fourteenth annual VERSeFest, March 21-24, 2023]

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

VERSeFest 2024: Reid, drystek, Earl, Dolman, Turnbull, Christie + Mohammadi,

above/ground press authors Monty Reid, nina jane drystek, Amanda Earl, AJ Dolman, Chris Turnbull, Jason Christie and Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, among plenty of others, read next week in Ottawa as part of VERSeFest 2024 (March 21-24)! Might we see you there? And in case you weren't aware, there have been an array of interviews with a number of authors reading at this year's festival posted over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, including an interview with AJ Dolman by Amanda Earl and Sandra Ridley by Margo LaPierre, and interviews with Khashayar Mohammadi and Jason Christie by myself (interviews with Chris Turnbull, Laila Malik + Klara du Plessis to post over the next few days!).

some author activity: MacEachern, mclennan, Archer, Heroux + Barwin,

Jessi MacEachern, nina jane drystek, rob mclennan and Sacha Archer (among others) all have work in the final issue of Carousel, which also includes an interview between Jason Heroux and Jerrod Edson; and Gary Barwin is on the inaugural League of Canadian Poets Spoken Word Award shortlist.

new from above/ground press: A Crown of Omnivorous Teeth: poems in honour of Chris Johnson and raccoons in general, ed. Dessa Bayrock

A Crown of Omnivorous Teeth
poems in honour of Chris Johnson and raccoons in general
edied by Dessa Bayrock
$5

with contributions by:

Cameron Anstee
Manahil Bandukwala
Dessa Bayrock
Joshua Chris Bouchard
Liam Burke
Jake Byrne
Conyer Clayton
Ellen Chang-Richardson
AJ Dolman
nina jane drystek
Amanda Earl
Margo LaPierre
rob mclennan
James K. Moran
Emilia Morgan
David O'Meara
Pearl Pirie
and
Monty Reid


There aren’t any proverbs about raccoons that I know of. But there should be. Here’s one, to start: where you see one raccoon, there are five more standing behind it.

Where you see one raccoon, there are ten more standing behind it.

Where you see one raccoon, there are surely eighteen more standing behind it.

This volume collects eighteen such raccoons — or, at least, impressions of raccoons. The thing these impressions have in common is the raccoon standing in the light, held endearingly by nineteen other beady eyes wedged into faces still firmly in the shadows. The raccoon standing in the light is, of course, Chris Johnson. (Editor’s Foreword, Dessa Bayrock)

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

Dessa Bayrock lives in Ottawa with two cats, one of whom is very loud and almost always nearby. She ran post ghost press for two years and has published three chapbooks: IS IT ABOUT RUINS AND GHOSTS?, The Trick to Feeling Safe at Home, and Worry & Fuck. She recently completed a doctorate about Canadian literary awards. You can find her, or at least more about her, at dessaybayrock.com, or at @dessayo on Instagram.

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: drystek, Eleftherion, Niespodziany + Reid,

nina jane drystek has new work up at The Hellebore; Melissa Eleftherion has new work up at Hot Pink Magazine; Benjamin Niespodziany lists his "30 favorite authors (and their books) that I read in 2023"; and Monty Reid has work in the new issue of Pinhole Poetry.

report: the above/ground press 30th anniversary reading/launch/party!

Can you believe three decades have come and gone already? As you probably know, I hosted a reading and launch and party on August 12, 2023 at the Clocktower Brew Pub in the Glebe as part of the glorious thirtieth anniversary of above/ground press, with readings by Jennifer Baker, nina jane drystek, Amanda Earl, Sophia Magliocca, Karen Massey, Jérôme Melançon, Monty Reid and Grant Wilkins. Unfortunately, Adrienne Ho Rose was unable to come in from Iowa City, but we all waved at one point to acknowledge her (I wonder if she saw us wave?). Her parents still live here, so I'm hoping there might be further opportunities for her to read in Ottawa at some point.

David Currie and Christine McNair

It was nice to finally have another in-person anniversary event, given the prior one was back in 2019 [see my report on such here]. And, naturally, brilliant thanks to my slate of attractive volunteers: Christine McNair and David Currie who ran the book table, and Brendan McNally who covered door duty. And did you see that Christine even dressed the same colours as the cover (which was originally temporary, but I wonder now if it may have stuck) for this fall's groundwork: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing)? Naturally, pre-orders are available now for this fine volume; and I think we're launching via the ottawa international writers festival this fall?

Amanda Earl

nina jane drystek [photo credit: Jérôme Melançon]

The first reader was Amanda Earl, who read from the latest issue of Touch the Donkey, which included some of her work. Having produced some ten chapbooks of her work-to-date through above/ground press [as well as a festschrift on her work], I always delight in hearing what she's been working on. Amanda really has been on fire the past few years. Have you heard that she's launching a new book soon? nina jane drystek launched her third chapbook and first with above/ground, missing matrilineal, a deeply intimate examination of loss that balances precision with open space, hesitation and clear patter.

Jennifer Baker [photo credit: David Currie]

Monty Reid

Jennifer Baker's Groundling: On Apology is a reissue of a chapbook she had in 2021 with the late John Goodman's Trainwreck Press, produced in a short enough run that she wanted to see it further out into the world. I know she works slowly, but I've been curious to see what else she's been working on. I was first introduced to her work through Phil Hall, from his time as writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa, which resulted in the publication of Baker's chapbook debut, Abject Lessons (2014). Monty Reid's Where there's smoke emerged as a direct result of the ongoing fires, with smoke that stretched not only across Quebec and Ontario, but his prior landscape of Alberta [you saw the festschrift I produced on his work, yes?]. I told the story of meeting Monty for the first time when we both participated in a group reading for National Poetry Month through The League of Canadian Poets, back on April 1, 1999 (curated and hosted by Susan McMaster, I think it was). I was curious at him travelling all that way for the reading, and he said: No, I moved here yesterday.

Chris Johnson [photo credit: Jérôme Melançon]

Oh, and I suggested Chris Johnson bring along copies of the latest issue of Arc Poetry Magazine for potential sale, given the new issue has a good-sized essay on above/ground press by Jérôme Melançon. Make sure you pick up a copy!

Karen Massey [photo credit: Jérôme Melançon]

Sophia Magliocca

It does seem that every decade or so above/ground press produces a new chapbook by Karen Massey, a poet who is clearly long overdue for a first full-sized collection. When might that happen? If only we were still doing Chaudiere Books, honestly. Karen was one of the first people (and only participant younger than forty) that I met when I first started attending readings via The TREE Reading Series circa 1992. Where has the time gone? Her third chapbook, SONGS FROM THE DEMENTIA SUITCASE, is easily the strongest work I've seen from her so far. Next up was Montreal-based poet Sophia Magliocca, launching her chapbook debut and arriving with her parents in tow, all of whom were deeply supportive and absolutely adorable. Adorable! Sophia (one of a growing list of authors younger than the press) is a poet I first heard about through a recommendation by Montreal poet Sarah Burgoyne, who has offered a handful of poets with chapbook manuscripts my way over the past few years (Misha Solomon, Rose Maloukis and Vivian Lewin being others). Sarah clearly has an interesting eye. I am looking forward to seeing what Sophia does next.

Jérôme Melançon

Jérôme Melançon flew in from Regina (to visit family in Gatineau, but we coordinated) to launch his third above/ground press chapbook, Bridges under the water. There aren't that many attending English and French-language poetries the way he is, now having published works in both languages, as well as writing criticism on both French and English-language titles in periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics. You should catch this interview I did with him last year over at Touch the Donkey on the two sides of his language/poetic: there's some interesting stuff in there.

rob mclennan [photo credit: Jérôme Melançon]

And he even pushed me to read a poem, saying that he came all this way and wanted to hear me read in person. So I did!

Grant Wilkins [photo credit: Jérôme Melançon]

The final reader of the evening was Ottawa poet and printer Grant Wilkins, who somehow exploded out of the woodwork a few years back, despite being around the Ottawa literary scene since the early 1990s (not long after I emerged). Grant always used to tell folk that he didn't write, no no, but I think it was his work with jwcurry and Messagio Galore that prompted something, whether a newfound interest or confidence, and now he's doing the most interesting combination of sound, visual and conceptual/response work around. We launched not one but two chapbooks of his as part of this event (with a prior above/ground press title earlier this year and even another one last year). What might be next?

Thanks so much for all who attended! It was such a great crowd, including natalie hanna, Charles Earl, Marilyn Irwin, Rob Fairchild, Jason Christie, Frances Boyle, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Cathy Macdonald-Zytveld, Marc Adornado, Susan Johnston, Senka Stankovic and a whole bunch more. Thanks again to the Clocktower Brew Pub! It was a pretty nice space. We clearly need to do this again next year.

new from above/ground press: missing matrilineal, by nina jane drystek

missing matrilineal
nina jane drystek
$5

               there is only

 

edge of knife
             tine of fork
                         spoon to eat grapefruit

                      flesh

my grandmother how me how to make the perfect shape

                       mirror of a nail
                       neck          line
                       needle      hem

hold pustule between finger & thumb
                        squash it with tongue         

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[nina jane drystek will be launching this title in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 30th anniversary reading/launch/party on August 12!]

cover image: Woman before a Mirror (1897) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

nina jane drystek is a poet, writer and performer based in Ottawa, unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. she is author of a:of:in (Gap Riot Press, 2021) and knewro suite (Simulacrum Press, 2019), and her poems have appeared in online and print publications, as well as in self-published chapbooks and broadsides. her original sound poem scores can be heard on bandcamp. she is one of the co-founders of Riverbed Reading Series, was shortlisted for the 2020 Bronwen Wallace Award for Poetry, writes collaborative poetry with VII – authors of holy disorder of being (Gap Riot, 2022) and Towers (Collusion Books, 2021) – and performs sound poetry with the rotating group of collaborators. if you have ever lived in the same city as her you have likely seen her riding a red or blue bicycle. you can find her @textcurious.

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 Return of The Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta: a report,

Another regatta! It was glorious to have a gathering for our holiday what-sis once more, even with a small crowd (less than twenty people, actually). Can you believe this is the first one held in-person since 2019 [see my report on such here]? The Peter F. Yacht Club, which began in the late 1990s somewhere as an informal gathering/conversation of writers, produced its first issue in August 2003, with our first holiday gathering (most likely) in 2005. And of course, see my 2018 report here, my 2017 report here, my 2016 report here, my 2015 report here, and my 2013 report here. Oh, and did you hear a new issue is forthcoming?

We had a small gathering of readers, including Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, myself, Stuart Ross, D.S. Stymeist, Chris Turnbull and Grant Wilkins! AJ Dolman, James Moran (who has a new collection of short stories, apparently) and Margo LaPierre were scheduled, but life circumstances kept each of them from attending, although I did manage to convince (with little prompting) nina jane drystek to read, which was fun. Given the holiday chaos, between the occasional child-cough and the pre-Christmas storm that came through, Christine and our young ladies were away with family (a bumped visit), with a variety of other PFYC regulars also sending their regrets.

Frances Boyle

I've always enjoyed the idea of a holiday party between Christmas and New Year's, given how (obviously) half the readers might be busy with other activities, but those who are able are desperate to get out of the house (there aren't usually readings between, what, the first week of December and the second week of January?). The crowd at this particular event was small (given Covid, weather and other stresses), but mighty: including folk such as Steve Zytveld, Cathy McDonald-Zytveld, Christine Sung (who brought homemade cookies!) and (for the first time in attendance!) Sara Jamieson.

Jason Christie

D.S. Stymeist

Grant Wilkins

Obviously it was so good to hear from everyone! After so long, also. Some of the highlights included Stuart Ross reading a short poem for the late Michael Dennis [see my obituary for him here], Chris Turnbull reading two poems by the late Robert Hogg [see my obituary for him here], Grant Wilkins' remarkable sound poetry performance, and even Stuart and nina jane performing an improvised sound poem collaboration on the spot! Oh, had I only taken some further photos.