above/ground press

Tell us what you do!

What it is that I do: curate, announce and distribute. I’ve roughly one hundred and forty subscribers across North America (and beyond), so one might suggest that the biggest benefit with publishing through above/ground press is one of distribution. I publish writing that excites me by writers I wish to see work from. I don’t see as much in terms of unsolicited submissions these days, so the bulk of the press emerges still through solicitation or ongoing conversation with authors I would like to see something else from. 

Every title, naturally, folded and stapled by my very hands, with chapbook print-runs averaging three hundred copies, with print runs for Touch the Donkey sitting at one thousand. The process is very physical and time-consuming. I’m already on my fifth long-arm stapler in twenty-eight years. 

How do you see the current state of visual, constraint-based, and other formally experimental poetry? 

The state of the art is quite healthy! I think back to the late 1990s and into the early oughts when Derek Beaulieu was slowly managing to publish in journals that hadn’t published that kind of work in years, if at all. I think most concrete and visual poets had simply given up on the more traditional poetry venues, but Derek managed to break through, which I think opened a permission for a lot of what followed. In many ways, he really helped bring the art back into the forefront of conversation in a way it hadn’t been since bpNichol was alive. Over the past twenty years, there really has been an explosion of visual, constraint-based and other formally experimental poetry being composed, published, distributed and discussed, with a huge geographic range of writers, publishers and readers that have managed to connect not only to each other, but to the wider audiences. It has been remarkable to see the art flourish so fully over the past twenty-odd years. 

Why run a poetry press? What struggles do you face, but also what rewards are there?

Well, the struggles with running a poetry press remain as they ever have: am I selling enough to afford to be able to make more? Am I publishing the best work possible at this particular moment? Am I simply publishing the same kind of work ad nauseum? Are there authors I should be paying better attention to and soliciting potential work from? Am I getting the already-produced work out of my basement enough and into the hands of interested readers? Where does one go from here? Etcetera. And the rewards are plenty! For example, I recently produced a chapbook by Baton Rouge, Louisiana visual poet Ava Hofmann, and saw Ottawa poet natalie hanna post on social media saying just how good this chapbook is, with more than a couple of others responding in agreement. I enjoy knowing that these connections are possible, through my overindulgence of photocopies and postal drop-offs.

What is the ultimate goal of above/ground? 

That is a good question. I suppose the goal through the press is what it has always been: to make connections between writers and readers, to offer a platform for poets doing incredible work, and to publish some of the best work being produced right now, but in inexpensive, easily-distributed formats. I wish to support the work that is happening. I wish to support work that excites me.