Sunday, July 13, 2025

Evan Nicholls, Easy Tiger

 

EASY TIGER

The tiger makes it all so easy, the way it sweeps the woman’s house, packs a satsuma for her snack, accounts for the taxes. The way it ambushes need. How it steps the ache out of her back after work, shifting like a moon man or a dressage horse. This tiger is better people than most, the woman thinks. Stil, it is shit at being a tiger. The way it obeys all rules of the IRS.

The latest from Charlottesville, Virginia poet and artist Evan Nicholls, following his prose poem and full-colour visual debut, Holy Smokes: Poems + Collages (Syracuse NY/Exeter NH: Ghost City Press, 2021) [see my review of such here], is the small yet hefty volume Easy Tiger (Future Tense Books, 2025). Easy Tiger offers a quintet suite of surreal prose poems with occasional full-colour collage, all of which appear structured in similar ways, one sentence or phrase or image set atop another into a pile, providing less of a straightforward narrative through-line than an assemblage that suggests a narrative of collisions and surrealisms through the very act of reading. “He is not a white knight or a black knight.” the poem “A REGULAR KNIGHT” begins. “He is a regular knight. / In regular armor. / With a regular sword. / He does not ride a white horse or a red dragon. / He rides a pony and is accompanied by a large ginger cat.” One might attempt to describe such pieces as short narrative fictions or prose poems, as sharp collage works or jumbles, as quirky or oddball, all imprecise offerings for what Nicholls’ poems are doing and attempting, all of the above simultaneously, deliberately riding that fine line between sense and non-sense. The single line of the poem “LAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT YOU,” for example, that reads: “You mow the lawn. You vacuum up.”

There’s been a heft of younger American poets leaning into the prose poem over the past few years, often with a surreal bent or thread, including Evan Williams [see his above/ground press title here], Shane Kowalski, Benjamin Niespodziany [see my review of his latest; see his above/ground press title here], Nate Logan [see my review of his latest; see his latest above/ground press title here], Ben Jahn [see his above/ground press title here], MC Hyland [see my review of their latest; see their above/ground press title here] and Lindsey Webb [see my review of her latest; see her above/ground press title here], as well as a whole slew of others, most of whom seem to be following an impulse or prompt by such as the late Russell Edson [see my review of his posthumous selected poems here], although with more of a lyric bent. In his own way, Nicholls does write, as Vik Shirley offers on the back cover, with “a relentless commitment to the weird and strange,” or, as Zachary Schomburg offers, “a recklessness,” although one with such a playful, joyful sense of nuance and heart. Nicholls composes poems that can’t help but lift any dark mood, dark heart, through such joyful and surreal ridiculousness, even across the occasional dark thread. In the end, these might just be poems of hope.

CHEKHOV’S GUN

The gun had a bell for a mother. The gun’s father was a cheap crate. If the gun’s mother ever tried to go off, the crate would eat her with the entire length of his arms.


Saturday, July 12, 2025

the above/ground press 32nd anniversary reading/launch/party! August 7 at RedBird,

celebrating THIRTY-TWO YEARS of continuous activity (and nearly fourteen hundred publications), Ottawa publisher above/ground press presents:

readings and chapbook launches by:

Jason Christie (Ottawa), Monty Reid (Ottawa), Beatriz Hausner (Toronto), Ellen Chang-Richardson (Ottawa), Lina Ramona Vitkauskas (Toronto) + Mandy Sandhu (Toronto);

lovingly hosted by above/ground press editor/publisher rob mclennan
THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2025 at RedBird
7pm door/7:30pm reading 

$18 ; includes copies of three recent above/ground press titles ; Tickets available via RedBird, or at the door; [see the report here from last year’s event] 

author/performer biographies: 

Monty Reid was born in Saskatchewan, and currently lives in Ottawa. He is the author of the full-length collection Karst Means Stone (NeWest Press, 1979), The Life of Ryley (Thistledown Press, 1981), The Dream of Snowy Owls (Longspoon Press, 1983), The Alternate Guide (Red Deer College Press, 1985), These Lawns (Red Deer College Press, 1990), Dog Sleeps: Irritated Texts (NeWest Press, 1993), Crawlspace: New and Selected Poems (House of Anansi Press, 1993), Flat Side (Red Deer College Press, 1998), Disappointment Island (Chaudiere Books, 2006), Luskville Reductions (Brick Books, 2008), Garden (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and Meditatio Placentae (Brick Books, 2016), as well as a mound of chapbooks. The former Managing Editor of Arc Poetry Magazine, he was the Artistic Director of VERSeFest: Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival for more than a decade.

Reid is the author of seven titles through above/ground press: Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (2000), cuba A book (2005), In the Garden (sept series) (2011), Moan Coach (2013), seam (2018), Where theres smoke (2023) and cuba A book: twentieth anniversary edition (2025), which he will be launching as part of this event. above/ground press produced Report from the Reid Society Vol. 1 No. 1 (2022).

Jason Christie lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and two children and no pets. His published books include Canada Post (Invisible), i-Robot (EDGE/Tesseract), Unknown Author (Insomniac), and Cursed Objects (Coach House). He’s wrapping up a new collection that he wrote with/against/for AI.

Christie is the author of nine chapbooks with above/ground press: 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013), Cursed Objects (2014), The Charm (2015), random_lines = random.choice (2017), glass language (excerpt) (2018), Bridge and Burn (2021) and glass / language / untitled / exaltation (2023; second printing, 2023), which won the bpNichol Chapbook Award, as well as PSA (2025), which he will be launching as part of this event.

Beatriz Hausner has published several poetry collections, including The Wardrobe Mistress (2003), Sew Him Up (2010), Enter the Raccoon (2012), Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (2020) and She Who Lies Above (2023), as well as many limited edition chapbooks. Her books have been published internationally and translated into several languages, including her native Spanish, French, and most recently Greek. Hausner writes extensively about surrealism and her translations of Spanish American surrealist poets have exerted an important influence on her own writing. Hausner has edited journals and magazines, including Open Letter, ellipse, Exile Quarterly, as well as many of the books published during her tenure as a publisher of Quattro Books. She is the editor of Someone Editions, and its current project French Letter Society. Beatriz Hausner was President of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and Chair of the Public Lending Right Commission. She lives in Toronto where she publishes The Philosophical Egg, an organ or living surrealism. Currently, with Russell Smith, she curates and runs the lecture series Soluble Fish. She will be launching her above/ground press debut chapbook, The Oh Oh (2025).

Ellen Chang-Richardson is an award-winning poet, multi-genre writer, judicial assistant, and editor of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent. A third culture kid at heart, Ellen’s writing is informed by their love of contemporary art, their concern with humanity’s impact on Earth, and their experience moving through various societies as a femme-presenting genderqueer. The author/co-author of six other poetry chapbooks, Ellen’s multi-genre writing has appeared in Augur, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Ex-Puritan, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Plenitude, Watch Your Head, and more. Their debut collection, Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. They are a co-founder of Riverbed Reading Series, an editor for Room and long con magazine, and a member of the poetry collective VII. Find out more at www.ehjchang.com. They will be launching their above/ground press debut, The Moleskin Coat (2025).

Lina Ramona Vitkauskas is a Canadian-American-Lithuanian formerly from Chicago, living in Toronto. She is an award-winning, published poet & video poet. She was a 2020 recipient of a PEN America grant for her development of an experimental poetry collection that adapted poems from Vsevolod Nekrasov and Bill Knott. She was also the voice of George Maciunas’ mother in the documentary, GEORGE (directed by Jeffrey Perkins) screened at MoMA and in Vilnius. Her work has been most recently featured in/at: Film Video Poetry Society (Los Angeles); Octopus Film Festival (Gdansk, Poland); John Gagné Contemporary Gallery (Toronto): Post-Future Era with Kunel Gaur, Justin Neely, and Confusions (Ben Turner); Poetic Phonotheque (Denmark); MOCA Toronto (public installation); SIFF (Moldova); Newlyn Film Festival (UK); Festival Fotogenia (Mexico); Midwest Poetry Fest (US); Vienna Video Poetry Festival (Austria); and the International Migration & Environmental Film Festival (Canada). Her website is linaramona.com. She will be launching her above/ground press debut, The Deaf Forest of Cosmic Scaffolding (2025).

Mandy Sandhu is a poet based in Oakville, Ontario. Her work, often in sonnet form, blends vivid imagery with sharp observation, drawing inspiration from writers like Sylvia Plath, the Beats, Dale Smith and Ted Berrigan.  Mandy works at Toronto Metropolitan University in the Disability Office. She will be launching her chapbook debut, The Temporary Space of a Placenta (2025).

for media inquires, as ever, send a note to rob mclennan at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com,

Friday, July 11, 2025

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Bindu Suresh

Bindu Suresh [photo credit: Eva Maude] is the author of the novella 26 Knots (2019) and the novel The Road Between Us (2025). A former journalist, she has written hundreds of articles for various newspapers, including the Montreal Gazette and the Buenos Aires Herald. She has a degree in literature from Columbia University and a medical degree from McGill University, and currently works full-time as a pediatrician. She currently lives in Montreal with her husband, her seven-year-old daughter, and her five-year-old son.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book legitimized me as a writer in my own eyes. Prior to that I’d published poetry and short stories in literary journals, and written newspaper articles in my time as a print journalist, but it was with my first book that I began to see myself as a writer.

I think my most recent work is similar to my previous work in style, tone, and form, but it’s also more lighthearted, less Romantic, less tragic.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I actually started, as a teenager, with poetry, but had moved on pretty definitively to fiction by the time I turned 18. I discovered an interest in character, and then (though less so) in plot. My beginnings are still evidenced in my poetic style of prose; this is actually the sine qua non of my writing, for me.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I find the ideas and words come pretty quickly once I start, and that first drafts appear looking close to their final shape. I don’t have any notes; I have a timeline, which I use to track what my characters are doing when (very necessary in a book like my latest, in which eight characters traverse twenty years and three continents), a rough document that I use in the moment (to compare two versions of a sentence to decide which I prefer), the main document with the novel itself, and that’s it.

4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I often (well, for the two novels I’ve written!) start at the beginning: that is, on Page 1. After that it can be a bit all over the place, with me writing Page 2, then 3, then what ends up being 15, and 16, then what in the end will become 143 and 144. And then the ending, then maybe back to the beginning. For me it is certainly short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, though I am aware the whole way through that I am working on a ‘book’. So it’s a bit of both, I suppose!

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy them; I enjoy feedback of any kind, to be honest, and readings—particularly the questions and discussion that follow—are a kind of feedback. I write for my own brain’s satisfaction and pleasure in getting a story down on the page, but I also write as a grateful reader; that is, as someone who feels she was helped and guided to live a happier life through the fiction she read. My fondest wish as a writer is to get to do the same for someone else.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I don’t, really. The questions I’m trying to answer are on the level of our human experience: what makes us act the way we do? What are the consequences of our decisions? I usually use relationships (parental, platonic, and most often, romantic) as the means through which I explore those questions.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think I alluded to this a bit in a previous question, but for me the role of the writer is to augment our understanding of the world, and to help us live better, happier lives as a result.  

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Ha, both! I hate fighting over commas, over whether-or-not-I-need-two-metaphors-here, and the like. But I would also hate to go without it, because the only editor I have ever worked with—Leigh Nash, now at Assembly Press, who edited both 26 Knots and The Road Between Us—deeply parsed every line and made the book better for it. Even if I disagreed with her and the line in question stayed as it was, my understanding of my own line had deepened in having to defend it.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Can the best piece of advice come from me, having discovered it through trial and error? If yes, then I’d say it’s to end each writing day knowing where you’re going next. That way, when you sit down the next day to write, you start on a roll instead of in front of a glaring blank page.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (journalism to non-fiction to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
It’s been fairly easy to move between genres. Each kind of writing brings its own satisfaction: journalism (efficiency, clarity, the odd interjection of humour if you can get away with it/the piece calls for it), and fiction (world- and character-building, the use of more poetic language, the construction of a story arc). I certainly wouldn’t be good at all forms of writing, but I would love to try them all—I’ve always been tempted to write a play, for example, given how important I think dialogue is to a story.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
My writing routine is very much grab-the-time-when-you-can. I’m a shift worker (I work in a pediatric emergency setting) so sometimes I work in the mornings and sometimes in the evenings, sometimes on weekdays and sometimes on weekends. If I have a number of day shifts in a row I’ll try to take advantage and write in the early morning, say at 5am, before my kids are awake. If I work an evening shift, I can write in the morning when they’re at school. I’ve learned to start with writing as my first work of the day and leave less intellect-requiring tasks (identifying, testing and then throwing out all my kids’ cap-less, dead markers, folding laundry, answering emails…) for the evening. That way my most energetic self is put towards the work that is most important to me.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
To be perfectly honest, what happens now is that I doggedly and ineffectually continue on, imagining that if I just ‘think harder’ for a while longer I’ll solve whatever problem has presented itself and come up with the finally-right sentence. At the end of sometimes hours of frustration I’ll then remember all the actions I could have taken to get myself unstuck: reading a book, going for a run, organizing a closet. I’m still learning to notice when I’m stuck and to realize I need to take a break. Thankfully, I don’t get stuck often!

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Lilacs. They were ever-present for me growing up, first as a child in Saskatchewan, then as a teenager in Calgary. And now, at my home in Montreal, I’m lucky enough to have a lilac bush in my backyard.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I’d agree with that statement, in that my biggest influences have been other books. I do also love visual art, and dance, and frequent exhibitions and performances often, so I am sure those are influences, too. Films and plays have also been hugely influential.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
There are writers who have influenced my development as a writer, like Alice Munro (who does so much with so little), William Faulkner (who leaves much unsaid and leaves the reader to fill in the gaps), or Jorge Luís Borges (with his commanding narrative voice that impels the reader to suspend all disbelief). There are contemporary writers I’ve discovered more recently that have propulsive plots with literary execution in a balance that I admire (Damon Galgut, Claire Keegan). There are writers I read simply because they’re enjoyable to read (though they are gifted writers, also, certainly), like Sally Rooney and Elizabeth Strout.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I don’t think there is anything! Can I cheat and list things I love to do that I don’t do any longer? If so, I’d say dancing—salsa, merengue, and tango—which I did a lot pre-kids and haven’t had time to go back to post-kids. I’d also like to travel anywhere I haven’t been and learn as many languages as I can; I think the next one I’d learn would be German (though, in a practical sense, before embarking on a new language I would try to improve my French and Spanish, which seem to undergo a steep attrition the minute they’re not used).

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I already have another career (as I know many other writers do): I’m a pediatrician. To answer in the spirit of the question, however, I’d probably say I would have become a literature professor. That way I could continue to keep books close, but also teach, which I love doing. (As a doctor I get to teach residents and medical students, as well as my patients’ parents, all the time.)

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
For me, the drive to write comes both from a sense of joy and a sense of duty. It is my favourite thing to turn my mind to. It is also—by my personal sense of ethics—what, if I happen to have any skill at doing, I should turn my mind to. I mentioned before how grateful I am to the novels and stories that have shown me how to live a happier, more considered life, and if I can do even in small part the same, I feel that I should.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
When I’m writing I tend to read contemporary novels in English, so when I’m between projects I take advantage to branch out to other languages and periods. I just finished Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which was great. In terms of the last great film, I’d say Anatomy of a Fall, by Justine Triet.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Nothing currently! I’m taking a little six-month break between the end of editing The Road Between Us and writing something new. I always say I have three jobs: being a writer, a doctor, and a mom (though, of course, being a mom is a full-time job!). The pause will allow me to more fully throw myself into the other two; in the fall I’m sure I’ll be delighted and ready to start a new project.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;


Thursday, July 10, 2025

Touch the Donkey : new interviews with Straumsvåg, ryan, Solomon, Lockhart, Dulin, Davis + Higgins,

Anticipating the release next week of the forty-sixth issue of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], why not check out the interviews that have appeared over the past few weeks with contributors to the forty-fifth issue: Dag T. Straumsvåg, brandy ryan, Misha Solomon, D. A. Lockhart, Dominic Dulin, Jordan Davis and Larkin Maureen Higgins.

Interviews with contributors to the first forty-four issues (more than two hundred and eighty interviews to date) remain online, including:
J-T Kelly, Jennifer Firestone, Austin Miles, Alice Burdick, Henry Gould, Leesa Dean, Tom Jenks, Sandra Doller, Scott Inniss, John Levy, Taylor Brown, Grant Wilkins, Lori Anderson Moseman, russell carisse, Ariana Nadia Nash, Wanda Praamsma, Michael Harman, Terri Witek, Laynie Browne, Noah Berlatsky, Robyn Schelenz, Andy Weaver, Dessa Bayrock, Anselm Berrigan, Alana Solin, Michael Betancourt, Monty Reid, Heather Cadsby, R Kolewe, Samuel Amadon, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Miranda Mellis, kevin mcpherson eckhoff and Kimberley Dyck, Junie Désil, Micah Ballard, Devon Rae, Barbara Tomash, Ben Meyerson, Pam Brown, Shane Kowalski, Kathy Lou Schultz, Hilary Clark, Ted Byrne, Garrett Caples, Brenda Coultas, Sheila Murphy, Chris Turnbull and Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Stuart Ross, Leah Sandals, Tamara Best, Nathan Austin, Jade Wallace, Monica Mody, Barry McKinnon, Katie Naughton, Cecilia Stuart, Benjamin Niespodziany, Jérôme Melançon, Margo LaPierre, Sarah Pinder, Genevieve Kaplan, Maw Shein Win, Carrie Hunter, Lillian Nećakov, Nate Logan, Hugh Thomas, Emily Brandt, David Buuck, Jessi MacEachern, Sue Bracken, Melissa Eleftherion, Valerie Witte, Brandon Brown, Yoyo Comay, Stephen Brockwell, Jack Jung, Amanda Auerbach, IAN MARTIN, Paige Carabello, Emma Tilley, Dana Teen Lomax, Cat Tyc, Michael Turner, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Colby Clair Stolson, Tom Prime, Bill Carty, Christina Vega-Westhoff, Robert Hogg, Simina Banu, MLA Chernoff, Geoffrey Olsen, Douglas Barbour, Hamish Ballantyne, JoAnna Novak, Allyson Paty, Lisa Fishman, Kate Feld, Isabel Sobral Campos, Jay MillAr, Lisa Samuels, Prathna Lor, George Bowering, natalie hanna, Jill Magi, Amelia Does, Orchid Tierney, katie o’brien, Lily Brown, Tessa Bolsover, émilie kneifel, Hasan Namir, Khashayar Mohammadi, Naomi Cohn, Tom Snarsky, Guy Birchard, Mark Cunningham, Lydia Unsworth, Zane Koss, Nicole Raziya Fong, Ben Robinson, Asher Ghaffar, Clara Daneri, Ava Hofmann, Robert R. Thurman, Alyse Knorr, Denise Newman, Shelly Harder, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Biswamit Dwibedy, Emily Izsak, Aja Couchois Duncan, José Felipe Alvergue, Conyer Clayton, Roxanna Bennett, Julia Drescher, Michael Cavuto, Michael Sikkema, Bronwen Tate, Emilia Nielsen, Hailey Higdon, Trish Salah, Adam Strauss, Katy Lederer, Taryn Hubbard, Michael Boughn, David Dowker, Marie Larson, Lauren Haldeman, Kate Siklosi, robert majzels, Michael Robins, Rae Armantrout, Stephanie Strickland, Ken Hunt, Rob Manery, Ryan Eckes, Stephen Cain, Dani Spinosa, Samuel Ace, Howie Good, Rusty Morrison, Allison Cardon, Jon Boisvert, Laura Theobald, Suzanne Wise, Sean Braune, Dale Smith, Valerie Coulton, Phil Hall, Sarah MacDonell, Janet Kaplan, Kyle Flemmer, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, A.M. O’Malley, Catriona Strang, Anthony Etherin, Claire Lacey, Sacha Archer, Michael e. Casteels, Harold Abramowitz, Cindy Savett, Tessy Ward, Christine Stewart, David James Miller, Jonathan Ball, Cody-Rose Clevidence, mwpm, Andrew McEwan, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Joseph Mosconi, Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy, Oliver Cusimano, Sue Landers, Marthe Reed, Colin Smith, Nathaniel G. Moore, David Buuck, Kate Greenstreet, Kate Hargreaves, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Erín Moure, Sarah Swan, Buck Downs, Kemeny Babineau, Ryan Murphy, Norma Cole, Lea Graham, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Oana Avasilichioaei, Meredith Quartermain, Amanda Earl, Luke Kennard, Shane Rhodes, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Sarah Cook, François Turcot, Gregory Betts, Eric Schmaltz, Paul Zits, Laura Sims, Stephen Collis, Mary Kasimor, Billy Mavreas, damian lopes, Pete Smith, Sonnet L’Abbé, Katie L. Price, a rawlings, Suzanne Zelazo, Helen Hajnoczky, Kathryn MacLeod, Shannon Maguire, Sarah Mangold, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Aaron Tucker, Kayla Czaga, Jason Christie, Jennifer Kronovet, Jordan Abel, Deborah Poe, Edward Smallfield, ryan fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Robinson, nathan dueck, Paige Taggart, Christine McNair, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Nikki Sheppy, Kirsten Kaschock, Lise Downe, Lisa Jarnot, Chris Turnbull, Gary Barwin, Susan Briante, derek beaulieu, Megan Kaminski, Roland Prevost, Emily Ursuliak, j/j hastain, Catherine Wagner, Susanne Dyckman, Susan Holbrook, Julie Carr, David Peter Clark, Pearl Pirie, Eric Baus, Pattie McCarthy, Camille Martin and Gil McElroy.

The forthcoming forty-sixth issue features new writing by: Kirstin Allio, kemeny babineau, Joseph Donato, Beatriz Hausner, Matthew Walsh, Nicole Markotić, Lisa Pasold, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas and Emily Izsak.

And of course, copies of the first forty-five issues are still very much available. Why not subscribe?


Included, as well, as part of the above/ground press annual subscription! Which you should get right now for 2025! And you know about the above/ground press 32nd anniversary reading/launch/party happening in Ottawa on August 7th? tickets are available!

We even have our own Facebook group, and a growing (new) above/ground press substack. It’s remarkably easy.


Wednesday, July 09, 2025

Christine + I read in Dublin (Ireland) at Books Upstairs on July 13, with Christodoulos Makris and Éireann Lorsung

Christine McNair (dear spouse) and I are reading in Dublin, Ireland at Books Upstairs (17 D’Olier Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, D02 RX06) on Sunday, July 13 at 2pm with Irish poets Christodoulos Makris and Éireann Lorsung. You should come out! https://booksupstairs.ie/events/

Tuesday, July 08, 2025

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Éireann Lorsung

Éireann Lorsung [photo credit: David Torralva] works in a field of images, objects, movement, and texts, and especially in the overlap between printmaking and poetry. Her publications include The Century, winner of the Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Her book, and Music for Landing Planes By, named a 'new and noteworthy collection' by Poets & Writers. Pattern-book (2025) is newly out from Carcanet Press, and Milkweed Editions will publish Pink Theory! in 2026. She is a 2016 NEA Fellow and held the 2025 Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Writing at Scripps College.

[Éireann Lorsung reads in Dublin at Books Upstairs on Sunday, July 13 at 2pm with Canadian writers rob mclennan and Christine McNair, and Irish poet Christodoulos Makris]


1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, Music For Landing Planes By, was also my MFA thesis (in a revised form), and that it was published at all that changed my life—or, really, what I understood to be possible for me. My teacher at the University of Minnesota, William Reichard, had had us write post-MFA publication trajectories as part of our thesis class. I had very sincerely written that I planned to make a dozen copies of my manuscript and leave them on public buses, benches, and in the grocery store. This was the extent of my interest in publication at the time. To his credit, Bill knew me well enough to know that I was totally serious, and he sent my manuscript to Milkweed without my knowledge. (I have no qualms about this. I would not have submitted the manuscript on my own, possibly ever.) Without Bill, I doubt I would have had a first book, which means I would not have had my second or third collections with Milkweed either. I am certain I would still be writing and publishing in all kinds of forms—making books myself, publishing other people—but my sense of myself as participating in literature in public would likely be very different. Bill's generosity and perceptiveness opened a path for me I would not have known was there, or how to open, for myself.

My most recent collection, Pattern-book, is in some ways very close to Music For Landing Planes By. It's different from the intervening two collections which are in some ways more rangey. Pattern-book contains mostly short poems (≤ two pages). Most of these are in the lyric tradition that was given to me as the primary tradition of anglophone poetry when I was a student. Like that first book, I can see my attraction to and tendency to think using image in this new collection. I also see certain religious principles—wonder at bigness and complexity, the preciousness of living things—at work in both books. This collection is different from my first collection, though, in part because time has passed and I have lived away from the city where I was brought up (though Minneapolis still figures prominently in these poems). I can now also understand my writing reflectively and contextually in ways I couldn't when I was a younger writer, and I think this has allowed me to structure the new book in more intricate ways; I can rely on my acuity of perception as well as on the intuition that years of reading gave me.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
My parents gave me poetry alongside visual art and music and things to eat and places to go, one of many ordinary beautiful things that should be and can be democratically available. We had some children's poetry books, and when I was in high school my dad gave me his copy of Edna St Vincent Millay's Poems Selected for Young People. But books were just around. My dad taught special ed and had done a teaching Master's and so he had the books from that in the house—he had loved and still revered his poetry teacher—and so I read Understanding Poetry and other such textbooks when I was in high school as well. We didn't have a ton of money, but we did have great access to the public library, to public museums like the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and to music both on the radio and in our house. So poetry was just a normal part of life, one more thing that was possible.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I am always "collecting data"—literally collecting instances of plants or weather or bus routes, among other things. And I am always assembling poems and other things from that data and from observations and impressions. Projects are less things I begin and more things I realize are happening when I put a frame around some of the things that are already ongoing. Because I am writing all the time—not very much at a time, but in a more or less continuous way—by the time my brain catches up and begins to suggest forms or 'project' ideas, the work is almost always there in pieces. So things come slowly and then happen quickly. That means tracing a single draft is, at least in the last five or ten years, less straightforward. And in fact I'm interested in the way the same phrase, image, idea may recur across poems or other work, without ever getting "used up".

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
As above, I tend to be-writing and then realize certain conceptual or formal likenesses that are taking place. I generally then respond to these, amplifying or complementing them. Once I have a book in mind, it often helps me reframe and reposition individual poems—ones I had thought were definitely in may be sorted out by a given frame, and others brought in. For example, when I was writing The Century, one working title was Mother Country, Fatherland, and then I had a number of poems in the manuscript that more directly thought about family structures. Those are almost all gone in the book that ended up being published—not because I didn't like them, but because the focusing idea in the book shifted and they no longer did what I wanted the book to do. I do think about books as forms in themselves, and though I don't write toward a book necessarily, I do revise toward the book once I know what it is, meaning thinking about what poems go in, in what order, and why.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I love to read. I love to perform. To me, speaking poems in public is an essential part of writing/publishing. What I read, and how, depends on what the audience is, where we are, what time of day it is. I like to think about performance as yet another way of revising the poems or the book—a separate, but related, project. Reading aloud to others is about equal to the thrill of being translated, to me. Audiences are a true gift.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Yes, I am trying to figure out how language does what it does. I am also interested in charisma: how can the writing convince the world to look (not necessarily at the writing but at the world)? What are the uses of charisma on the page and how does it appear? And I am also trying to see what it's like to work in as narrow a circumference as I can, and, relatedly, how to insist that nothing is beneath notice. I am trying to ask myself to stay with things I might be tempted to say have been resolved, or can be taken for granted. I am trying to ask myself, "how do you know?" when I say, "I know".

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I think the role of the writer should be like the role of the bus driver, librarian, teacher, grocery store worker, post officer, etc.: to do what you do as fully as possible, with as deep a sense of being among other people whose lives are as real and precious as your own as possible. To be attentive and to care for others' attentiveness. To take time and to make a world in which others can also take time.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I think this depends on the editor. I know that being read with care and precision is one of the greatest gifts—and so rare. I recently had the experience of being copy-edited by the Kenyon Review editors and it was so thorough and so attentive to every detail. It felt like having a very good doctor. They really had figured out what I meant and caught tiny gradations of meaning that I hadn't been able to. In general I find working with editors—who tend to be readers who are both committed and open at the same time—a very welcome thing.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Don't rush.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to prose to the graphic essay)? What do you see as the appeal?
Generally very easy, but also perhaps not so much about appeal or even decision anymore. I have gotten to a point where I can kind of sense what the texture of the idea is and what kind of form it will want. Sometimes this gets revised in the making, or I reprise the idea in another form or genre. But generally the ideas come with their forms and genre demands attached.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Right now I don't have a writing routine in the standard sense (a certain duration of writing on a regular schedule). We have had a very unsettled few years—since 2020, really—and I deal with unsettledness by establishing short-term constraints that I can respond to. For example, from March of 2023 through March of 2024, I wrote an essay every week and posted it online in a public space. I also keep running notes, added to almost daily on my walk to work and on errands, where I track plant and animal life as well as weather and encounters with human beings—these are for a longer-term project that I don't yet know the form of. When I have a deadline, I get that work done in a number of short stints—usually I can write an essay in a few sittings, and revise in a few more. But I long for a time when I know we will not be moving, I know that we have stable employment, and I can imagine just writing for an hour every day. I struggle to do that when I feel like there are so many things up in the air. Like a lot people probably, my day generally begins by looking at the texts I've gotten overnight. I try to read on paper after that, and not to look at news or Bluesky until after breakfast.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Repeating something I've already done is one of my go-to methods for unsticking myself.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Soda bread or brownies baking; Lemon Pledge (dusting fluid).

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Yes to all of these! And philosophy as well. I don't know how to make work except to be looking at pictures, reading books and papers and poems, listening to lectures, walking around in the world, listening to music. Of course this means that some of the things I make don't act "like poems"; I have had people tell me, on several occasions, that my poems are "too philosophical" to be poems (no), or that they "have no form" (no), or that my wide focus means my life "doesn't make sense" (also no). But I understand that my breadth of interests and inputs means that I am not always making things in ways that are recognizable, including to myself. I make them to find out what they might be.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
People writing now: Christina Sharpe, whose In The Wake is a central text for method and also poetics for me; her Ordinary Notes is also in my pantheon. Kiese Laymon—he is able to say clearly what he means, and I love the chapter called "Meager" in Heavy especially. He seems to have a real commitment to transparency and to know what he values and why. I admire that. Tressie McMillan Cottom, similarly, for her clarity and commitments, and also for the way she writes sociology for a broad audience without giving in to the (false) idea that that audience can't handle complexity. Gillian Allnutt, the living writer I feel is closest to Dickinson. Kate Zambreno, whose Heroines and To Write as if Already Dead are precious to me. Leslie Marmon Silko for Ceremony, one of the most perfect books in the world. Thomas A. Clark, whose work with his wife Laurie Clark I find a beautiful model of an artist's life, and whose Farm By The Shore is a delight from start to finish. Similarly, the life-work of Erica Van Horn and Simon Cutts, who run Coracle Press—and whose 'writing' extends to the deeply creative acts of housemaking and housekeeping—is very inspirational to me.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I would like to own a house and be able to live in one place for a decade at least. I'd like to be able to paint the walls and plant some fruit trees and get used to staying. And I would like to have steady and consistent access to healthcare.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I would love to be an orchestra conductor. If I weren't writing—but I can't imagine a life where I was not making poems and other things—I am sure I would be teaching. Teaching is and always has been the primary way I think of my occupation.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It was there, it was free, and it could be done anytime. And reading alone and with others always felt good.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Lara Pawson's Spent Light. Films: in the theater, Perfect Days. At home, Before Sunrise.

20 - What are you currently working on?
A book dealing with the artist Corita Kent, for whom teaching was as important as her art practice, about teaching and artmaking and the worlds that collaboration opens up for both. I'm also working on things to do with others—workshops making concrete poems using screenprinting; a series of banner-making sessions that lead to public processions.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Monday, July 07, 2025

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part three : Claudia Souto Cuello (trans. by the author + Stuart Ross,

[Mia Morgan of Coven Editions and Dr. Dessa Bayrock of post ghost press]

[see the first part of these notes here; see the second part of these notes here]

Cobourg ON/Switzerland: Every few months, there emerges further conversation how there isn’t enough literary translation occurring through Canadian publishing (Jérôme Melançon conducted a really compelling interview recently with Yilin Wang, for example, posted over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics), so it was good to see Swiss poet Claudia Souto Cuello’s chapbook, A braced triptych, translated from the French by Stuart Ross & the author (Proper Tales Press, 2025). As the author biography mentions, Cuello “inherited the Spanish and French languages from her Spanish parents living in Switzerland. After working for years as a vegetable grower, she published her first collection of poetry, Marina (éditions du goudron et des plumes, 2023).” The pieces in the collection exist as three poem-clusters that could be three poems, or three cluster-sections—“Cathedral of Leaves,” “A little patch of yellow wall” and “The Ornaments”—each of which exist through a blend of prose-stanzas and individual lines. The structure offers a curious counterpoint of structures within poems, within pieces, that play multiple rhythms, narrative purposes, and declarative sentences. Whereas Cuello’s poems lean into prose poem structures, there’s elements of the extended first-person meditative and declarative line of such as the late Etel Adnan (1925-2021), working a kind of lyric diary of the moment, running through the light and the dark of the current moment, or at least the moments across the time of composition. Might Ross be working to get a full collection of these happening? I would certainly hope so.

When the fog arrived, the timeworn lavoir and the weathered fountain tucked their necks into the hunched shoulders. Alone, circling the trees, tree by tree, I hung my words on the little coat racks of their leaves, like a little dictionary made of dry branches. And so it came to me that I had nothing left to say. Trapped in this bottle-green, to be drunk before winter arrives, my suspended words looked down on me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

{Before the light followed me, I stepped in}

 

Sunday, July 06, 2025

sign up for our VERSeFest/VERSe Ottawa email list!

hey! did you know that VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival now has an email list you can sign up for? You can do all of that here, if such appeals. We're aiming for monthly posts (at most), with information on upcoming readings, possible workshops and what our two Poets Laureate have been doing or will be doing, also. We're also starting to think about our Spring 2026 festival (our sixteenth year!), so that's pretty exciting, don't you think?

You probably already know, separately, about my weekly "Tuesday poem" email list, which offers a new weekly poem (more than six hundred poets and poems offered to date), which also includes the occasional update around my own activity. as well as above/ground press, Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], the ottawa small press book fairperiodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, the monthly SPOTLIGHT series, Chaudiere Books, my clever substack, the above/ground press substack, the (ottawa) small press almanac, etcetera. There's an awful lot to keep track of, honestly.

Saturday, July 05, 2025

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Alicia Swain

Alicia Swain is the author of Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, a feminist poetry collection releasing in August 2025. Her work has been featured in several online publications, including Vast Chasm and The Vehicle. Swain studied English at Penn State University and Eastern Illinois University. She can be found on her website at aliciaswain.com, on Bluesky as @aliciamswain.bsky.social, and on Instagram as @aliciamswain.   

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? 

While there are many experiences to come still, the process of working with a publisher was eye-opening. It showed me my weak spots and what crutches I use to hide them, what words I have a habit of repeating and why, and what themes I bury in my work that I don’t always mean to include. Since editing Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, I’ve found myself exploring different poetic forms and writing far longer pieces than I did before. I think learning about what I did that worked, and what didn’t, allowed me to feel more confident and eager to try new things. The new collection I’ve written, but is not yet published, has a completely different feel to it.  

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction? 

I’ve been drawn to poetry since I was in middle school, which is when an English teacher really opened my eyes to it (thanks, Mrs. Troop!). Something about its concision and abstract nature speaks to me, and writing poetry comes more naturally than any other form of writing. I can write a poem on any day at any time, from the minute I wake up to seconds before I fall asleep.  

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes? 

When it comes to poetry, the ideas come quickly, but the organization comes slowly. The first draft will emerge, but when I read my work through for the first time, I often find unexpected threads and thematic connections. In a way, I like to let the ideas pour out as they arrive and worry about the rest later.  

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning? 

For my debut collection, Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, it was a matter of writing short pieces over time and eventually putting them into a collection. I’m certain I will do that again in the future, but the next collection I am working on is more chronological and was written with the intention of being a book from day one.  

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? 

I enjoy doing readings, and I am actually seeking more opportunities to do them these days. One thing I’ve discovered, however, is that I need to approach work I intend to read aloud differently than work I intend to publish on paper. I love to play with form and use the placement of text on a page to add meaning, and that doesn’t always translate well aloud.   

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are? 

Feminist theory takes center stage in a lot of my work, in one way or another. I want to follow the threads that formed the cloth women are forced to wear because I want to find the knot holding it all together and untie it. It’s my hope that what I write can answer questions about the present and the future: how do we experience the systems in place? What can a woman achieve when she is not burdened by oppressive systems? What would it take to build a more idyllic world that’s built with equality in its roots?  

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be? 

I believe it’s the job of writers and artists to take risks and show the truth about our world without letting the fear of others dampen our message. In America, we are seeing a lot of book bans and threats that aim to silence the creative world. I think it’s up to writers to criticize loudly, to tell the stories of real people and their experiences, and to craft paths forward because our creativity and our ability to portray new ideas has power.  

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? 

I love working with an editor. Like any art form, writing gets interpreted by people that don’t know my mind or my intentions. An outside editor can come in and see where my intentions are getting lost and what opportunities I missed. Every opportunity I have to work with an editor, I emerge with new ideas and feel inspired. I welcome critique. I know everything I do won’t be effective the first time around, and that’s okay.  

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? 

When I was in college, I took a course with Robin Becker. She was tough as nails and asked every poet to take the course as seriously as they would take any other subject. I adored her, and, to this day, still think about what I learned from her. That advice, to take art seriously and treat it as respectfully as one would calculus or physics, gave me a laser focus and shaped me moving forward.  

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction to fiction to drama)? What do you see as the appeal? 

I think writing other genres teaches me to be a better poet, but I also think being a poet shapes my narrative style with prose. I am working on a speculative fiction novel, and how I choose to approach describing setting or a character’s experience is often rooted in poetic language. That said, learning to branch out and shift from brevity to a more uninhibited structure requires some serious mental exercise. I notice that I tend to focus on either a larger poetry project or my novel, but never both at once, because it is too challenging to switch modes. When I return to the other genre, everything feels fresh, and I have a renewed outlook on how to approach the work.  

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin? 

I should have more of a routine than I do. I have a habit of starting poems when I get up and get ready in the morning, so it’s integrated in my regular routine in a way. I’ll jot down lines in my Notes app and come back to it later in the evening. Saturdays are the only time I get to fully immerse myself in writing for as many hours as I would like, and so it’s my favorite day of the week.  

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? 

For better or for worse, when I feel stuck on a piece, I start something new. A new project is always invigorating. This sometimes means, as in the case with my novel, that a project doesn’t get finished for some time, but when I return to it, I have a new perspective and fresh eyes.  

13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume? 

I’ll be honest, I haven’t dressed up in several years! COVID definitely changed that for me. I did buy all the needed pieces to embody Galadriel for an evening a couple years back, so it’s high time I broke that out.  

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art? 

Nature and visual art inspire a lot of my work. I have an ekphrastic chapbook searching for its home as we speak, so I have a lot of love for writing inspired by art. As for nature, I draw connections between our lives as humans and the ways of nature very regularly, including in Steel Slides and Yellow Walls. It’s my goal to find myself back in a mountainous, rural area to soak in the natural beauty and let it guide my hand.  

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work? 

For many years, I read only speculative fiction and poetry for pleasure. At this point in my life, however, I find nonfiction important for my work because it allows me to immerse myself in subjects that align with what I am currently writing about. Since difficult topics like sexual violence and homophobia are very present in what I’m writing now, I’ve been reading works like Is Rape a Crime? by Michelle BowdlerThe Stonewall Reader by the New York Public Library, and, currently, Missoula by Jon Krakauer 

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? 

I am determined to find an agent for my speculative fiction novel. I love poetry and frequently abandon prose projects to satisfy my curiosity about new poetry ideas, but I really want to see through finishing and publishing a novel traditionally.  

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer? 

A piece of me wishes I pursued law school. I love tearing apart the language of a document and finding its weak points, pondering the art of persuasion, and fighting for what I believe in. Whenever I read about or watch a movie about a lawyer that uses their knowledge and skill set to improve people’s lives, I feel so inspired and wish I could do the same. The justice system is flawed, and lawyers are essential for helping people navigate its complexities.  

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? 

While it’s not all I do for a living, writing is my passion and has always been. Putting words to paper comes more naturally to me than any other means of expression or any other subject. When I went to college, I tried to fight that at first. I thought I might be a psychologist or an engineer, but I knew, deep in my heart, that writing and literature were what I loved and wanted to spend my life surrounded with.  

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? 

This is tough because I’ve been reading a lot of stellar books lately. I would say The 272 by Rachel L. Swarns and, like so many people are talking about right now, James by Percival Everett are two that have really stuck with me. As for film, I haven’t been watching many movies lately because I’ve been watching a lot of series at home. I finally got my husband to watch Breaking Bad recently, which was fun to revisit.  

20 - What are you currently working on? 

I am currently sending out a poetry collection about endometriosis and an ekphrastic chapbook to publishers to find a home for them. Steel Slides and Yellow Walls and some of my volunteer work has been taking a lot of my free time lately, but I am trying to return to my novel to get a full round of editing completed and get it one step closer to query-ready.  

12 or 20 (second series) questions;