Jacob Schepers, Ugly Ground Swell Moss

 

Ugly ground, swell moss finds you worth keeping neat.

Ugly ground, swell moss knows of some face of you you cannot.

Ugly ground, swell moss wants you all to itself. To cover you until your

            surface area is its surface area.

Ugly ground, swell moss feels the cool of your touch. Offers itself as

            covering to benefit the both of you.

Ugly ground, swell moss wants you two to be exclusive. With your gray

            its green. Your steady its growth.

Notre Dame, Indiana-based poet, editor and scholar Jacob Schepers’ second full-length poetry title, following A Bundle of Careful Compromises (Buffalo NY: Outriders Poetry Project, 2024), is Ugly Ground Swell Moss (Spokane WA: Carbonation Press, 2026). Ugly Ground Swell Moss is a deeply-ambitious book-length project, purposefully considered and sketched-out as a kind of gestural monologue or book-length essay, one that accumulates, relying on long sentence-thoughts and structural repetitions, looping through a conversation in and around biologist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) and philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). To offer, quickly: Linnaeus is best known for his work in taxonomy—the science of identifying, naming and classifying organisms—with Levinas best known for his conversations around ethics, and how we are most responsible for ourselves in relation to others. What, then, are our responsibilities, Schepers inquires, to ourselves, in relation to our natural environment? The structure of this particular ecopoetic is incredibly unique, however similar the kinds of questions and explorations I’ve seen recently through a variety of poetry titles by British Columbia poets, specifically Vancouver poet Elee Kraljii Gardiner’s sometimes, forest (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2026) [see my review of such here], Kelowna poet Matt Rader’s FINE: Poems (Gibsons BC: Nightwood Editions, 2024) [see my review of such here] and Delta poet Kim Trainor’s A blueprint for survival: poems (Toronto ON: Guernica Editions, 2024) [see my review of such here]. One might suggest that such a conversation, a thesis-via-the-lyric, becomes particularly curious to explore through this particular form, and one might wish to ask exactly what prompted Schepers to approach his material through this accumulative overlay, this loop, of the extended lyric sentence.

Across four numbered sections—“To Name,” “To Call,” “To Maim” and “To Cull”—with an afterword, the poem loops, perpetually returning to the beginning, returning to that “Ugly ground,” akin to Robert Kroetsch’s perpetually-begun sequence without end, or the repetitions of poets such as Sawako Nakayasu or the late Denver poet Noah Eli Gordon. The loops begin, almost slow at the offset, allowing the anchor of that opening phrase to swirl the stretch of his thought-line well beyond the boundaries of a normal page. Each section offers an opening salvo, “Taxonomy,” before the loops begin as self-contained pieces in sequence. “Taxonomy” opens the foundation of each section, each chapter, like a thesis. The first begins:

To limit is what’s to taxonomize. Taxonomy is what is to assume a

            specialized attempt, a knowledge of prescriptive meaning

            shaving off borders.

To clear it up, this isn’t a romance: no Petrarch calls to you.

Forget the lover: this dynamic exchange? There’s no winner, no call for a

            witness-takes-all. No, none of that.

Through the repetition, Schepers offers less a return to the beginning than a series of concentric circles, as each sentence-section returns to the beginning before stretching out again, furthering the narrative cohesion and accumulation. The looped phrase offers a grounding to such an expansive, gestural, lyric, set in a compact package. Or, as the author’s “Afterword,” “On Identity, Legacy, Ugly Thinking, and Ethical Endlessness” provides, to open:

            Ugly Ground Swell Moss is at its heart a philosophically poetic project that spins around inquiry, obsession, relationality, ontology, and the epistemological questions that derive from such foundations. That sounds busy, I know, so consider all of that as the equivalent of holding a diamond up to a light source to see the various facets, reflections, and dispersions that can all be present in order to scrutinize as many details as possible to get a clearer sense of the whole thing. I am no systematic philosopher. I much prefer the lateral thinking that poetic processes depend on and thrive within. I’m grateful for big questions and for the relief of not having to answer them definitively.
            Resembling, on the one hand, a collection of odes in their insistence on apostrophe, and, on the other hand, a sonnet sequence due to their cumulative effect and twisted incantatory syntax and voice, the text of Ugly Ground Swell Moss explores the identities and relationships of the two title characters within a sparse ecosystem of longing and allegorical desire. This collection interrupts the centrally questioned relationship with tangential epigraphs and so-called “Taxonomies” that draw on the 18^th-century work and ensuring controversial legacy of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus and the 20^th-century’s Lithuanian-born, French philosopher of Jewish heritage named Emmanuel Levinas. To varying degrees, I confront each of these thinkers’ afterlives in intellectual history—more on this below—and consider them within the ongoing discourse around lyric subjectivity, rhetoric, and ethics. All the while, there is shifting away from an exclusively anthropocentric viewpoint and towards the nonhuman ecology beneath our footing.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Susan Stewart

Susan Stewart is a poet, scholar, and translator and the Avalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities, emerita, at Princeton University.  Her most recent books are Bramble, a book of poems, The Ruins Lesson, and Poetry’s Nature: Four Lectures.

She has won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and an American Academy of Arts and Letters award for her poetry. A former MacArthur Fellow, Berlin Fellow, and Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. 

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 made a difference in the way I thought about writing poems--writing a book became the project rather than the continuous, but incidental, practice of simply writing poems. This is my seventh book of poetry and since The Forest each book has had a particular relation to understanding the past. In that book, I explored the notion from psychoanalysis of generational haunting and addressed the accounts I had of family life before my birth; in Columbarium I wanted to rethink the genre of the georgic from a perspective of doubt and an acknowledgment of the indifference of nature; in Red Rover I thought about the medieval dream vision and forms of play as spheres of the imagination. In this book I turned to Mandelstam's use of the octet and the Biblical psalms as models for countering emergency and expressing grief. Considering the phenomenon of the bramble I hoped to learn something about the potential of natural symbols.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction? 
I have written poetry from childhood. I also like to work as a scholar. But I have never been successful at writing fiction. I don't seem to have a strong narrative sense.
 
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 a very slow poet with only a few exceptions of poems that have come to me as I awakened in the night. Usually I have a phrase or concept in mind, or perhaps an image or memory, and I begin to make the poem.  I write drafts on long sheets of paper usually. And then I have to stop and put the poem away for quite a while--often months. Then I go back to it and try to resolve whatever seems unfinished to me.

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?
see above

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 in the rare periods when I have a new book that is finished. I always read my poems aloud to myself as I am writing them, but when I read in public I have a better sense of how they sound.
 
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 have many theoretical concerns. That is why I have written a number of scholarly books about poetics and aesthetics. I believe the most pressing question for poets of our time is the fate of both the senses and the imagination at a moment when we are surrendering our will to technologies largely in the service of greed.

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? 
Our job is to keep thinking and beauty alive and to pass on those values to future generations.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to translation to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I don't think of this practice in terms of ease--it's more of a necessity for me. My poems and criticism are nourishing to one another and I practice translation not as a "professional," but as a means of friendship and helping English language literature be less parochial. 

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 don't follow a routine, for my life is too complicated for that--but I do go for a long walk and work in my garden almost every day. 

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
My writing doesn't become stalled because I don't have a schedule for it.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home? 
honeysuckle

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, all of those forms are an influence...and I often enjoy collaborating with composers and visual artists.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I have been so fortunate to spend my working life teaching the history of literature, art, and philosophy to young people and learning from others in university settings. Although I now have retired from teaching, I read in these fields every day and I don't feel a gulf of any kind between my work and the life outside my work.  My family life is also very much tied up with these worlds: and for all of us issues of social justice and citizenship have only increased in intensity under the current U.S. regime.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? 
Walk freely at night in any neighborhood of my city and know that no one suffers from hunger, witness the success of local public schools and the flourishing of the liberal arts and humanities in U.S. colleges and universities, see my family, friends, and neighbors able to afford the health care they need and certainly deserve, watch the collapse of the military-industrial complex, enjoy clean air and water and know it can be found anywhere on the planet...you get the idea.

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 don't know. As I applied to college, women could not have their own financial accounts and many universities were not open to women. I have been fortunate to be able to write my way into an existence that has been fulfilling and in my private life I have been so lucky in many ways.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? 
The most recent great book I've read--this past week--is Jay Wright's beautiful Párodos.  The recent film I have most enjoyed is Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera.

20 - What are you currently working on? 
I have just published three books: Bramble, Poetry: Four Lectures, and Last Stops of the Night Journey, a co-translation of two recent books by Milo De Angelis.  I am finishing, with Patrizio Ceccagnoli, a translation of Antonella Anedda's Geografie, the companion volume to her Historiae, which Patrizio and I recently brought out with New York Review Books.  So now, free of deadlines, I have the luxury of figuring out what I want to do next.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Small press and anarchist book fairs in the Glebe! interview with rob mclennan by Greg Macdougall,

Greg Macdougall recently interviewed me on tomorrow's ottawa small press book fair event, and an abridged version appeared as an article in the Glebe Report; here is the full interview. Thanks much!

On Saturday June 20^th, the ottawa small press book fair is at the Glebe Community Centre, from noon until 5pm. Then a week later, on June 27, the Ottawa Anarchist Bookfair is also being hosted there, from 10am until 3pm.

This may be a unique opportunity! The long-running, twice-annual small press fair is only temporarily at the GCC while Tom Brown Arena is being renovated. Last year, the anarchist fair was at Jack Purcell CC. Both fairs are free admission.

More detail about the anarchist fair follows below.

But first, here is an interview with OSPBF organizer rob mclennan:

The ottawa small press book fair - Q&A with rob mclennan

Q: So, what exactly is meant by "small press"? It is a 'Small Press Book Fair’, not a 'zine fair' (such as the HallowZine fair at the GCC the past two Octobers), so what are the general criteria or definition of a 'small press'?

A: Small press I would classify predominantly as small literary publisher, whether of a journal or chapbook-sized magazine or publisher of small single-author collections. I mean, 'zine is a small magazine, whatever that entails. Small press is a press who publishes small-run publications, whether photocopied, letterpress, hand-printed, hand-sewn, stapled, whatever.

Q: What kind of content will people be able to find from the tablers who'll be there June 20th?

A: Predominantly literary: poetry and fiction, but also some comics, non-fiction.

Q: It seems poetry might have a slightly different [distribution] model than other modes of writing. How would you say the small press book fair fits into the poetry distribution ecosystem?

Well, small press runs the range, obviously. some of these publications are hand-sewn or stapled, so will never see the inside of a bookstore, certainly aren't distributed through an actual distributor. Hand-sales are where such publications live, and even thrive. As bpNichol termed it, the gift economy. Those of us that make such purposefully-small publications share and trade and exchange and keep that conversation going, whether across years or kilometres or even across languages. Even the small presses that do have larger businesses (in comparison) hold such a small footprint compared to the big five (ie: the multinational literary publishers), with books that might win readers and awards, but aren't selling in the thousands. This event is for those books under the radar, often purposefully so. Do you think something hand-sewn or hand-printed in a run of 50 copies will ever see the inside of a chain bookstore?

Q: So this event, the ottawa small press book fair, you've been running for 32 (?) years, and with a couple exceptions, twice a year... maybe you can say a bit about the history? It is quite an accomplishment! Also, you obviously must see it as being worthwhile - what are some of the most important reasons to do it, both in terms of what it offers to the (local) literary community, and what is most rewarding personally for you?

A: Yep, the first fair was fall 1994, with the second in fall 1995. By spring 1996, it landed twice a year, with the only exceptions during the Covid-era, twice a year run by myself. James Spyker and I founded the first one (he moved away after the first event), a fair founded on the model of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair (an event founded in 1987, an extension of the original Meet the Presses fairs in Toronto, which now run annually).

This material, these books and writers and publications, are so easily and quickly overlooked, but exist as the foundation of any literature. This is where many writers begin, and were a handful even choose to live, entirely. Some writers remain with a foot here, whether as reader or writer or publisher or editor or some combination thereof (or all of the above) their whole careers, whatever engagements or books they might have through presses such as Penguin Random House or whatnot. This is literature, quite literally, at the ground level.

What I’ve personally enjoyed over the years has been seeing certain writers and/or presses emerge and then flourish across years. Some publishers use our event as a target for new publications, with the presumption that without our event, certain titles might not have been published, which is pretty cool. Look at what Cameron Anstee's Apt 9 Press has achieved over the years, or Amanda Earl, through her writing and publishing. There is such a remarkable array of talent in this town, much of which requires support to be able to flourish. I can only hope that the ottawa small press fair can simply be one of those supports.

Q:  So we also want to mention the fair usually has an event the night before, with some of the authors doing readings. And given how long you've been doing this, and how the growth of the internet etc has had major impacts on writing and publishing and everything else, what are some lessons you would point out, both professionally and personally?

A: The reading the night prior will be at Anina's Cafe in Vanier, with a handful of participating writers, some of which has yet to be confirmed [readers have now all been confirmed], of course. Vancouver poet Renee Sarojini Saklikar will be there, for one. I like the idea of an anticipatory event. The Toronto fair used to always have readings that same night, which I always found exhausting. By the time a fair is over, I’m wiped out, and just want to have conversation with other exhibitors, not have to sit quiet for anything. The event is free, 7pm [Friday June 19], all welcome.

The internet has been a boon for marketing, certainly, and provided the ability for people to find their people, wherever they might be, which can only be positive (well, for literary endeavours, anyway). There's nothing that can replace in-person interaction, I would say. Or a book or journal in-hand.

Q: As an author, as a publisher (above/ground press), and as a literary critic, what advice do you have for young / aspiring / early-career writers?

A: Not terribly complicated, really. Keep going, read everything, don't give up. Find your people.

Q: One of the things you're known for is the “12 or 20 Questions" interviews you do of other writers. Is there a question you'd like to ask yourself here?

A: Heh, maybe. Why do you take on so much? is a good one, although I haven't specifically an answer for that one. 

I learned notions of community and communal responsibility through the example of my farmer-father, and how he engaged with the people around him. What one can do, one does for others, in the ways that one can. He set a high bar.

** The ottawa small press book fair is Saturday June 20^th, 12 noon until 5pm at the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Ave (at Lyon). Website: smallpressbookfair.blogspot.com **