above/ground press TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY reading and launch: Reid, Barwin, Reed, O’Connor + McCann

above/ground press twentieth anniversary reading and launch

readings and new titles by Monty Reid, Gary Barwin, Marthe Reed, Wanda O’Connor + Marcus McCann

Friday, August 23, 2013

The Mercury Lounge, Lounge Level (second floor)

doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm

$8 cover / includes the new issue of The Peter F Yacht Club

Monty Reid (Ottawa ON) ~ Moan Coach

Gary Barwin (Hamilton ON) ~ Seedpod, Microfiche

Marthe Reed (Syracuse NY) ~ After Swann

Wanda O’Connor (Montreal QC) ~ damascene road passaggio, selections

Marcus McCann (Toronto ON) ~ Labradoodle: An Essay on David McGimpsey

The event will also be the launch for the limited-edition chapbook I simply began: above/ground press at 20 [an interview with rob mclennan]. Conducted by Cameron Anstee, the interview chapbook will beproduced by his Apt. 9 Press.

Author bios:

Monty Reid is an Ottawa writer. His most recent full-length collections are Disappointment Island (Chaudiere) and The Luskville Reductions (Brick). Recently he has published chapbooks with various small presses, including above/ground, Apt. 9, Gaspereau, corrupt, red ceilings, and many others. His new mistranslation of Nicolas Guillen’s El Gran Zoo is forthcoming from BuschekBooks. He currently works as Managing Editor of Arc Poetry Magazine and plays guitar and mandolin in the band Call Me Katie. 

He will be launching the chapbook Moan Coach (2013), his fourth above/ground press chapbook after Six Songs for the Mammoth Steppe (2000), cuba A book (2005) and In the Garden (sept series) (2011).

Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, multimedia artist, and the author of 15 books of poetry and fiction. His books include Franzlations (with Craig Conley and Hugh Thomas; New Star), The Obvious Flap (with Gregory Betts; BookThug), The Porcupinity of the Stars (Coach House). He is winner of the 2013 City of Hamilton Arts Award (Writing), the Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year 2011, and co-winner of 2011 Harbourfront Poetry NOW competition, the 2010 bpNichol chapbook award, and the KM Hunter Artist Award. Barwin’s work has been published and performed in Canada and internationally. He received a PhD in music composition from SUNY at Buffalo. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario. garybarwin.com

He will be launching the chapbook Seedpod, Microfiche (2013), his second above/ground press item after “SYNONYMS FOR FISH,” STANZAS #26 (March, 2001).

Marthe Reed is the author of three books: (em)bodied bliss (Moria Books 2013), Gaze (Black Radish Books 2010) and Tender Box, A Wunderkammer (Lavender Ink 2007). A fourth book, Pleth, a collaboration with j/j hastain, will appear in September 2013 from Unlikely Books; a fifth will be published by Lavender Ink (2014). She has also published four chapbooks as part of the Dusie Kollektiv. Her poetry has appeared in New American Writing, Golden Handcuffs Review, New Orleans Review, HOW2, MiPOesias, Fairy Tale Review, Exquisite Corpse, BlazeVOX, and The Offending Adam, among others. Her manuscript, an earth of sweetness dances in the vein, was a finalist in Ahsahta Press’ 2006 Sawtooth Poetry Contest; her manuscript Nights Reading was a finalist for the Elizabeth P. Braddock Prize (Coconut Books). An essay on Claudia Rankine’s The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue appears in American Letters and Commentary.

She will be launching the chapbook After Swann (2013).

Wanda O’Connor is a graduate of Concordia’s Creative Writing and Classics programs, and most recently completed an MA in Literature with a considerable focus on Robin Blaser’s stunning carmen perpetuum. damascene road passaggio, selections is an excursus through transitions of semi-tones and silence, possessing no address nor addressee nor gaze nor superior flattery. Wanda is currently at work on a long poem manuscript and is an editor at Lemon Hound.

She will be launching the chapbook damascene road passaggio, selections (2013).

Marcus McCann is the author of two previous above/ground titles: Heteroskeptical (2007) and Town in a Long Day of Leaving (2010). Labradoodle is his ninth chapbook. He is a winner of the John Newlove Award and the EJ Pratt Medal for poetry. His two trade collections Soft Where (2009, Chaudiere Books) and The Hard Return (2012, Insomniac) can be found at Glad Day, a bookshop he co-owns with some 20 queer radicals in Toronto. marcusmccann.com

He will be launching the chapbook Labradoodle (2013), his third above/ground press chapbook after Heteroskeptical (2007) and Town in a long day of leaving (2010).

new from APT. 9 PRESS; I simply began: above/ground press at 20 [an interview with rob mclennan]

above/ground press author (and friend of the press) Cameron Anstee spent a few weeks working on an interview with me for the upcoming above/ground press 20th anniversary, now available (for pre-order) as a chapbook through his own small press, Apt. 9!

The publication sees official launch on Friday, August 23, 2013 at The Mercury Lounge (second floor lounge) as part of the 20th anniversary above/ground press reading/launch/party! I'm still waiting on a final confirmation before announcing, so watch this space over the next little bit for the announcement of readers and new publications!

Here's the announcement Anstee posted on Friday:

This month, Apt. 9 Press is thrilled to be publishing an extended interview with rob mclennan: I simply began: above/ground press at 20. rob’s above/ground press is celebrating its twentieth anniversary in August 2013. For any small press activity, this would be a stunning accomplishment. In Ottawa, a city that hasn’t always been as active as some others in the Canadian landscape, it takes on greater significance. Apt. 9, so often concerned with its Ottawa-specific context, could not let this anniversary go by without doing something to mark the occasion. So, we set up with rob over email for eight weeks and asked him about the origins of the press, what was happening in Ottawa when he got going, what his ambitions were, what they’ve become, what he’s proud of and what he regrets, how many staplers he’s gone through, how he’s funded the entire operation for twenty years, the material aesthetics of what he does, and an awful lot more.

The chapbook will be ready and available on Friday, August 23 at the above/ground press twentieth anniversary reading at The Mercury Lounge. rob is still lining up his readers, but from what we’ve heard so far you won’t want to miss it. We’ll post all the details here as they emerge.

Congratulations, rob, and congratulations, above/ground press! Hey, you can almost drink in the US.

The Factory Reading Series presents: a VERSeFest fundraiser; lectures/talks by Anstee, Pirie + Brockwell,

The Factory Reading Series presents:

A VERSeFest Fundraiser

with lectures/talks on writing by

Cameron Anstee (Ottawa)

Pearl Pirie (Ottawa)

+ Stephen Brockwell (Ottawa)

as a fundraiser for Ottawa’s third annual VERSeFest Poetry Festival, March 2013

http://www.versefest.ca/

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan

Thursday, November 15, 2012;

10$ door cover / includes a copy of The Peter F Yacht Club #17

doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm

The Mercury Lounge, 56 Byward Market Square, Ottawa

For author bios and links, check here.

The Factory Reading Series: above/ground press at nineteen,

The quintessential poet’s micro-press, above/ground press — founded and published by poet, writer, and editor rob mclennan out of Ottawa, Ontario — publishes chapbooks by both newly emerging and established poets alike. What makes above/ground press titles stand apart from other micro-press poetry chapbooks (besides their nondescript covers, that is) is that they offer the reader glimpses into collaborations as well as individual works in progress. It’s these glimpses which above/ground gives that makes their titles unique, revealing the process of the poet’s composition, their collaborations, as each waltz’s their muse along the thin razor’s edge of creation. […] It takes guts to write without a net, and particularly to publish those early efforts for all to see. Guts, indeed

                                                Mark McCawley, Fresh Raw Cuts

Ottawa’s above/ground press, a one-man operation run by writer, editor, publisher and critic rob mclennan, celebrates nineteen years of publishing in August with a reading and launch party at The Mercury Lounge with four readings/launches.

The Mercury Lounge, 56 Byward Street, Ottawa

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Door 7pm / readings 7:30pm

Cover $5 (includes a recent above/ground press title)

With readings and launches by:

Cameron Anstee (Ottawa ON),

            launching Regarding Renewal

Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa ON),

launching flicker

            Amanda Earl (Ottawa ON),

                        launching Sex First & Then A Sandwich

and Stephen Brockwell (Ottawa ON),

launching Excerpts from Impossible Books, The Crawdad Cantos

Part of the aesthetic of above/ground press [photograph by Deborah Poe] has closely followed mclennan’s own interest in encouraging and showcasing a combination of emerging and local Ottawa poets alongside more established writers from across Canada, the United States and beyond, and in introducing new writers to the local community. Through over six hundred and fifty publications so far, the press has been fortunate to be able to be part of a number of early publications by now-established writers, including Stephanie Bolster, Gil McElroy, Stan Rogal, Natalee Caple, Stephen Brockwell, Michael Holmes, Clare Latremouille, derek beaulieu, Pearl Pirie, Jay MillAr, Marcus McCann and Anita Dolman.

Over the past eighteen months alone, above/ground press has produced limited-edition poetry chapbooks by three Governor General’s Award winners—Phil Hall (including a section of his award-winning Killdeer, as well as a collaboration he did with Australian poet Andrew Burke), George Elliott Clarke and Robert Kroetsch—and other titles by Kingston’s first poet laureate Eric Folsom, and Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Rae Armantrout, as well as Marilyn Irwin, Amanda Earl, Barry McKinnon, derek beaulieu, Michael Blouin, Deanna Young, j/j hastain, Fenn Stewart, Kathryn MacLeod, Sarah Mangold, Stephen Brockwell, Jay MillAr, Robert Hogg, Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Rob Manery, Monty Reid, Ken Norris, Lea Graham, Ben Ladouceur, Dennis Cooley, Hugh Thomas, Camille Martin and Shannon Maguire.

For this year’s poetry month, in April, above/ground press produced new works by Lisa Robertson and George Elliott Clarke as free (with purchase) titles through Ottawa bookstores Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeebar and mother tongue books, to encourage business.

Cameron Anstee lives and writes in Ottawa ON where he runs Apt. 9 Press and is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at the University of Ottawa. Recent chapbooks have been published by above/ground press, The Emergency Response Unit, and St. Andrew Books. He blogs on things Ottawa, literary, and ephemeral at cameronanstee.wordpress.com.

Praise for Frank St.:

“Cameron Anstee’s serial poem Frank St. (March 2010, $4.00) is a study of house, history (‘in 1878 this address / was at the city limit’), art and self. He moves through his new/old home precisely but gently, instructing himself and us how to relax, ‘learn to stop,’ in order to then ‘see better, poem.’”

Allan Brown, Jones Av.

This is Anstee’s second above/ground press title, after the collection Frank St. (2010).

Marilyn Irwin partook in two of Ottawa poet rob mclennan’s poetry workshops in 2010, and graduated from Algonquin College’s Creative Writing Certificate Program this Spring. Marilyn self-published her first chapbook for when you pick daisies (2010) which was immediately re-issued by above/ground press. Extrapolated fragments of her musings can be found in issues of Bywords, Bywords Quarterly Journal, ottawater and Peter F. Yacht Club.

Praise for for when you pick daisies:

            “…out of this complexity grows linguistic beauty.”

                        Roxanne Hathway-Baxter, Broken Pencil

This is Irwin’s second above/ground press title, after the collection for when you pick daisies (2010).

Amanda Earl’s poems appear most recently or are forthcoming in the Puritan, fillingStation, Rampike, In/Words Magazine, & ripple(s): a postcard press. Her chapbooks have been published by above/ground press, BookThug, Chapbook Publisher, Free Poetry For, Laurel Reed Books & Puddles of Sky Press. Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca & the Bywords Quarterly Journal, & the (fallen) angel of AngelHousePress. For more information please visit www.amandaearl.com or follow her on Twitter @KikiFolle.

Praise for Eleanor:

There is something musical here. something that, like Jeanette Armstrong’s “Winds,” operates like wind chimes, notes hitting and resounding. Earl’s text jousts images and expectations, mundane glasses emptying, histories, feuds, mostly self-referential, domestic images, but still enough surprise here to keep me grasping through.

            Sina Queyras, lemonhound.blogspot.com

This is Earl’s third above/ground press title, after Eleanor (2007) and The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman (2008).

Stephen Brockwell is the author of four trade collections of poems. Fruitfly Geographic won the 2004 Archibald Lampman Award for the best book of poetry by an Ottawa writer. His Excerpts from Impossible Books is an interminable work in progress. Brockwell runs the small business www.brockwellit.com from his basement, borrowed office space and coffee shops.

Praise for Excerpts from Impossible Books: The Crawdad Cantos:

Stephen Brockwell’s Excerpts from Impossible Books: The Crawdad Cantos is the latest installment of Brockwell's ongoing work-in-progress. At times pithy, sometimes brilliant, Brockwell's poems run the entire gamut in this ongoing project.

                        Mark McCawley, Fresh Raw Cuts

Praise for Impossible Books (the Carleton Installment):

“Stephen Brockwell’s ‘Impossible Books project’ (this above/ground book is its second installment) is an ongoing series of individual poems that are presented as excerpts from imagined ‘impossible’ books. The impossible books of this installment range from Prime Minister’s Nursery Rhymes for Insolent Children, to the Evangelical Handbook for Engineers, to Metonymies: Poems by Objects Owned by Illustrious People, and Pindaric Odes to the Objects of Science, among others. This brief collection of ten poems is imaginative and surprising on every page.

                        Cameron Anstee, ottawa poetry newsletter

This is Brockwell’s third above/ground press title, after Marin County Poems (2001) and Impossible Books (the Carleton Installment) (2010).

For further information on the authors and/or event (with a whole ton of links), check the link here.

Social: the fun/draiser for Christine McNair + rob mclennan's September wedding

A fun fundraiser for Christine McNair and rob mclennan’s September wedding
Thursday, June 21, 2012
The Mercury Lounge, 56 Byward Street, Ottawa
doors open at 7pm; performances begin at 8pm

Tickets: $10 advance / $12 at the door
Through paypal to rob_mclennan@hotmail.com
Or directly at http://robmclennanchristinemcnair.blogspot.ca/

The evening will include musical performances by Call Me Katie, Marie-Josée Houle, Andrea Simms-Karp and James Missen. The evening will also include book, book art and gift basket raffles.

Or just enjoy drinks and the musical talent of some of our friends, and help toast our upcoming nuptuals!

Monty Reid will be gracing the stage with his band Call Me Katie. Best known as a poet, Monty Reid has been writing songs and playing in bands for decades. His repertoire includes bluegrass, western swing and blues, and hundreds of original songs. A versatile musician, he’s most often found with a guitar or mandolin, but has shown up with a banjo and a bouzouki as well. His sidekicks in Call Me Katie are Sarah Hill and Mike Rivoche. Hill, with her angelic voice and demonic fiddle, is a veteran of Celtic and bluegrass bands in Ottawa and on the east coast. Also a songwriter, she brings a more sophisticated touch to the band. Rivoche is a long-time Ottawa resident with a twangy past – he played guitar in several well-known rockabilly bands but holds down the doghouse bass in this configuration.

Born in Val d‘Or, Quebec and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Marie-Josée Houle celebrates her dual cultural roots through music. Singing and writing in both English and French, she brings the Townships to the Prairies and beyond. No polkas or foxtrots for this accordion diva; instead, she combines her classical, punk rock, and French cabaret sensibilities into one sultry stew of sound. Her musical history is as varied as her hair colour. Classically trained on the accordion at age five, she chose other instruments as the medium to first deliver music to the masses. In 2000, she took up the electric bass and saxophone in order to form two very eclectic projects in Edmonton. Her reconnection with the accordion coincided with a move to Ottawa in 2003 and culminated in the world music collaboration whose success served as a springboard for her solo work. Her solo debut Our Lady of Broken Souls (2007) and her sophomore album Monsters (2008) received much critical acclaim, including nominations for Best Folk Album of 2007 and of 2008 by the Ottawa Xpress. Both albums charted and received solid airplay on local college and community radio stations across the country. From 2007 - 2010, Marie-Josée was busy playing many festivals in Canada, France, Austria and Norway including the Accordion Festival in Vienna, NXNE, la Fete de l'été in Toronto, Ottawa Bluesfest and the Oya Festival in Oslo and embarked on many cross-Canada and European tours. The quantity of live appearances over the past two years have diminished greatly to focus on writing a new album, collaborate and record with other musicians in Canada and abroad, and to hopefully, start a family: http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/Marie-Josee-Houle

After spending nearly her entire life fighting with the frigid winters of the Ottawa Valley, songwriter Andrea Simms-Karp finally gave in to the tempting calm of hibernation. It was in this mindset that her new album was born: cocooned away from the storm with instruments for company. As she puts it: “Extreme weather makes a great muse.” Simms-Karp is an indie roots powerhouse, drawing on folk, pop and classical vibes to create a sound both fresh and familiar. The Ottawa native grew up taking classical voice lessons, singing in choirs, and getting steeped in folk music. She’s been stunning local audiences with her clear voice and unique style in live shows for over a decade. In 2004, the Ottawa Folk Festival recognized her talent by awarding her the Beth Ferguson Award for songwriting. With her debut album Sleeper, however, she garnered national attention. Powering through album charts at campus and community radio stations, Simms-Karp then won the hearts of people across the country with an appearance on Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café in September 2009. On the show, she debuted her then-unreleased song Whiteout, which has since found a home on her new album, Hibernation Nation. http://www.andreasimmskarp.com/

The Companionship Registry is "an allegory for what transpired?", but is also the current musical outlet for James Missen. Missen is a 12-year Ottawa resident who has written, recorded, and performed his own songs for the past 20 years. www.myspace.com/thecompanionshipregistry

And don’t forget, the McNair/mclennan pre-wedding reading at The Dusty Owl Reading Series, Sunday July 15, 2012!

Links at other information at our wedding website (including our registry): http://robmclennanchristinemcnair.blogspot.ca/