periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics was founded in March 2020 by rob mclennan as a curious extension of above/ground press, as well as an extension of some of the work of the twelve issues of the online seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics, edited by rob mclennan (2008-2018), and the six issues of Poetics.ca, edited by rob mclennan and Stephen Brockwell (2003-2007). Both journals have dropped off the internet due to issues with the web host, which prompted the creation of a new online journal.
Born
in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives
in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with
Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction
and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for
the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC
Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe
Ottawa Hall of Honour. An editor and publisher, he runs Touch the Donkey, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T [a journal of guest editors],
having recently shuttered seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics
as well as the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater, after sixteen issues.
His chapbook press, above/ground press, celebrated thirty years of
continuous publishing in 2023, and has produced more than twelve hundred items to
date. He is editor of my (small
press) writing day, an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers, and is co-founder of the ottawa small press
book fair, an event he’s organized twice a year since fall 1994. He is, through
hosting/curating/founding The Factory Reading Series (founded January 1993) one
of the founding organizing members of Ottawa’s annual VERSeFest Poetry Festival,
which celebrated ten years in 2020. He also spent the 2007-8 academic year in
Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta.
Recent
titles include The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry titles A perimeter (New Star Books, 2016), How the alphabet was made (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018), A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press,
2019), Life sentence, (Spuyten
Duyvil, 2019), the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022) and World's End, (ARP Books, 2023), as well as a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022). He has also edited or co-edited numerous anthologies, including groundwork: the best of the third decade of above/ground press, 2013 – 2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023), The
Calgary Renaissance (w/ Derek Beaulieu; Chaudiere Books, 2016), Ground Rules: the best of the second decade
of above/ground press 2003 – 2013 (Chaudiere Books, 2007), Decalogue 2:
ten Ottawa fiction writers (Chaudiere Books, 2006) and GROUNDSWELL, best
of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003).
Photo
credit (English Bay, Vancouver: February 2020): Christine McNair
rob
mclennan's author site : rob
mclennan's blog : rob's Patreon page : above/ground
press : Touch the Donkey
[a small poetry journal] : dusie,
the tuesday poem : G
U E S T [a journal of guest editors] : Chaudiere Books blog (including
daily poems for National Poetry Month) : my (small press) writing day
: many gendered mothers
: ottawa poetry newsletter : Forty Proper Tales : 12
or 20 (second series) questions : 12
or 20 (small press) questions : the ottawa small press book fair
: Spotlight series :