Archive for March, 2011

At the recent AWP conference in Washington D.C., PBS NewsHour was generous enough to film writers reading their work. This week the PBS NewsHour features BOA’s very own Craig Morgan Teicher. Here is Craig reading “The Virtues of Birds” from Cradle Book.

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

You can also read the text here

A number of exciting events are happening during National Poetry Month! Below are the dates for upcoming events featuring BOA’s poets. April is simply packed with opportunities to hear these wonderful poets read.  You can find more information here: http://www.boaeditions.org/about-us/events/.

The calendar is always evolving so please keep checking as new events are added, and be on the lookout for our poets near you!

Hope to see you at one of these events!

Mon Mar 28

Nikola Madzirov reads at the launch of The Wolf Poetry Magazine with Anne Waldman, Saskia Hamilton, & Danielle Blau – jimmy’s no. 43, East 7th. St.

Tue Mar 29

Nikola Madzirov with Ilya Kaminsky and Valzhyna Mort at the Lannan Center – Georgetown University

Thu Mar 31

John Gallaher reading with Ninth Letter – Krannert Art Museum, East Peabody Drive, Champaign, IL

Fri Apr 1

Richard Foerester at The YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center – The YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center 340 Montgomery St. Syracuse, NY 13202

Poetry Reading at NYU: Nikola Madzirov and Valzhyna Mort – Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street, New York , NY

Sat Apr 2

Richard Foerster at The Maine Festival of the Book – The Maine Festival of the Book Abromson Center University of Southern Maine Portland, Maine

Nikola Madzirov with Chase Twitchell at The Millbrook Poetry Society – The Millbrook Poetry Society

Sun Apr 3

Cecilia Woloch reads at 1st Congregational Church of Los Angeles’ Poetry Sunday – 540 S. Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90010

Mon Apr 4

Naomi Shihab Nye at The Hill School – The Hill School, Pottstown, PA

Nikola Madzirov at Albright College – Albright College, Reading, PA

Tue Apr 5

Naomi Shihab Nye at Hamilton College – Hamilton College, Clinton, NY

John Gallaher and GC Waldrep reading at Bucknell University – Stadler Center for Poetry Bucknell Hall Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA 17837

Wayne Koestenbaum at Affinities: Games of The Heart and Mind- Villa Gillet, Lyon, France

Wed Apr 6

G.C. Waldrep and John Gallaher read at the Palmer Museum of Art – Palmer Museum of Art Curtin Road The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-2507

Peter Makuck at Mount Olive College College – Mount Olive College College

Thu Apr 7

Peter Makuck at Mount Olive College College – Mount Olive College College

Michael Waters reading at Penn State-Brandywine – Penn State-Brandywine

Matthew Shenoda at Monroe Community College – Monroe Community College, Rochester, NY

Nikola Madzirov at SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE UNIVERSITY – SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE UNIVERSITY, Manchester NH

Fri Apr 8

Cecilia Woloch reads as part of The Poetry Society of South Carolina Poetry Series – The Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street

Sat Apr 9

Peter Makuck at Barton College – Barton College, Wilson, NC

Joanna Howard reading at University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL – University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL

Barbara Jane Reyes Reading with Janet Mendoza Stickmon at the Hercules Public Library – Hercules Public Library 109 Civic Drive Hercules, CA 94547

Sun Apr 10

Naomi Shihab Nye at Folger Shakespeare Library – Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC

Dan Albergotti reading at South Carolina Poetry Initiative’s Annual Awards Ceremony – Columbia Museum of Art

Jessica Treat reading at Amherst Books – Amherst Books, 8 Main Street, Amherst, MA, US

Nikola Madzirov w/Carolyn Forche at John Hopkins University – John Hopkins University

Wed Apr 13

Barbara Jane Reyes Reading with Eduardo C. Corral and Carolina Monsivais – University of Texas at El Paso

Thu Apr 14

Kazim Ali reading at Whitman College – Whitman College 45 Boyer Ave. Walla Walla, WA 99362

Fri Apr 15

Kazim Ali reading at Lewis-Clark State College – Lewis-Clark State College, Lewiston, ID

Naomi Shihab Nye at Poetry at Round Top Festival – Poetry at Round Top Festival

Ellen Bass at The Power of Poetry, The Hocking Hills Festival of Poetry – The Hocking Hills Festival of Poetry, in Logan Ohio

Sat Apr 16

Naomi Shihab Nye at Poetry at Round Top Festival – Poetry at Round Top Festival

Cecilia Woloch and John Guzlowski discuss Czeslaw Milosz – Ruskin Art Club, 800 South Plymouth Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

Sun Apr 17

Naomi Shihab Nye at Poetry at Round Top Festival – Poetry at Round Top Festival

Kazim Ali reading at The Eighth Annual Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival - Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY

Ellen Bass at The Power of Poetry, The Hocking Hills Festival of Poetry – The Hocking Hills Festival of Poetry, in Logan Ohio

Mon Apr 18

Barbara Jane Reyes on Writers on Writing – San Francisco State University

Nikola Madzirov at San Diego State University – San Diego State University

Wed Apr 20

Barbara Jane Reyes Reading for Lyrics & Dirges – Pegasus Downtown, Berkeley, CA

Tue Apr 26

Peter Makuck at Alderson-Broaddus College - Alderson-Broaddus College, Phillippi, WV

Fri Apr 29

Kazim Ali at Post45 conference – Post45 Conference, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH

In Rochester for a special reading from Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone (BOA Editions, 2009),  poet Matthew Shenoda will follow-up his reading at Monroe Community College with a master class on the poetry of travel on Friday, April 8 at Midtown Athletic Club.

The third installment of Writing Exercises — BOA Edition’s popular new writing workshop series — Shenoda’s class will inspire participants to draw upon their own travel experiences to capture on the page adventures experienced in distant and not-so-distant lands.

Great travel writing can be almost as fun as traveling. Through prose and poetry, we can experience new places, meet people, and gain a deeper understanding of our world. American Book Award-winning BOA-poet Matthew Shenoda lives in Los Angeles and travels regularly, including frequent trips to visit family in Egypt. His writing workshop will help you to turn your own travels – even if they’re only a trip down the street! – into poetry that will shine new light on your own adventures and allow you to share them with others.

Past Writing Exercises’ instructors have included BOA-poets Christopher Kennedy and Sean Thomas Dougherty and the inimitable Gary Lutz. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to work closely with a BOA author to exercise your creative muscles and learn new techniques to energize your writing.

FRIDAY, APRIL 8

6:00-8:30 PM

Cost is $50 and includes dinner.

For sign-up, call Midtown Athletic Club at 585.461.2300

Matthew Shenoda’s poems and writings have appeared in a variety of newspapers, journals, radio programs and anthologies. He has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and his work has been supported by the California Arts Council and the Lannan Foundation. Shenoda’s debut collection of poems, Somewhere Else (Introduction by Sonia Sanchez) was named one of 2005’s debut books of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine and is the winner of the inaugural Hala Maksoud Award for Emerging Voice, as well as a 2006 American Book Award. His latest collection, Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone, was published in fall 2009 from BOA Editions. Shenoda lectures widely and has taught extensively in the fields of Ethnic Studies and Creative Writing and is currently Assistant Provost for Equity & Diversity and Professor in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.

It was recently announced that Slovenian poet Aleš Šteger’s book, The Book of Things, is a finalist for the 2011 Best Translated Book Awards.

Šteger’s The Book of Things is his fourth book of poetry, and the first complete volume translated into English. The edition’s translator, Brian Henry, asserts in his introduction that this “is the ideal introduction to his work for English readers.”

Since his first publication in 1995, Šteger’s poems have been translated into a dozen languages, including German, Spanish, English, Czech, and Bulgarian, which makes sense, given the international concern and frequent flouting of borders and boundaries voiced through his writing.

Competing with Šteger and his translator, Brian Henry, for the top honor are four other books of poetry in translation. Three Percent highlighted the contestants and contest in a blog entry.

Three Percent also recently reviewed The Book of Things, and said, of the topic and translation:

The feeling [in Šteger's poetry] is of a view into a private world that is not our own, a view mediated by things, here a bandage, a grater, an apple. There is something behind them: memories that are not ours and that we cannot understand, so it is a testament to Šteger’s writing (and Brian Henry’s constantly lucid translation) that we feel them. And what is important beyond that is this idea: that objects might not just be there for us or, perhaps less crazy, that they grow past functionality to become the talismans of our lives, that they are imbued with our personal histories.

The complete review is available here.

The results of the Best Translated Book Awards will be announced Friday, April 29th at 9PM at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. The announcement will be part of the PEN World Voices Festival.

Cutbank Literary Magazine recently reviewed Deborah Brown’s Poulin Prize winning book Walking the Dog’s Shadow.  Reviewer Mike Walker praises the strength of Brown’s poems stating, “They stand up – they have a feeling of age and gravity to them, of footing secure and robust.”  He writes that her work, centered around truth, is both intimate and powerful. 

Recalling memories of old high school english teachers who taught that poetry opens doors to new worlds, Walker says, “Deborah Brown makes good on that promise.  She really does open those doors, the doors to the life of a middle-aged woman who connects with family near and far through her words, the doors of physical places in her memory, the doors of depths into the world the news and Internet share out only as postage-stamp or paint-chip sized postcards of its actual self.”

Read the full review here Cutbank Literary Magazine   

 

BOA translator Brian Henry has been named Zoland Poetry’s first featured poet as a part of their Omniglot Series.  Along with some of Henry’s own poetry, Zoland provides excerpts from Henry’s translation of The Book of Things by Aleš Šteger.  

Zoland Poetry is an annual of contemporary writing that “serves to unite the world of literature by reconfiguring the border between domestic and international poetry.”

Read more about Brian Henry and Zoland Poetry here

BOA authors Matthew Shenoda and Cecilia Woloch will be reading at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  The festival, to be held on Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1, attracts more than 140,000 readers each year.  Shenoda and Woloch’s session is scheduled for Sunday at 12:00 PM on the Poetry Stage and is followed by a book signing.  The Festival of Books is a free public event on the USC campus and is perfect for all ages. 

Shenoda’s first collection of poetry was named one of 2005’s debut books of the year by Poetry & Writer’s Magazine.  His most recent book Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone was published by BOA in 2009.  Woloch, recipient of an NEA Fellowship, is the founding director of the Paris Poetry Workshop, and her fifth poetry collection Carpathia was published in 2009 by BOA.

Read more about the L.A. Times Festival of Books here

In a thoughtful and probing interview, Rachel Cole Dalamangas asks Joanna Howard, author of On the Winding Stair, a broad range of questions that cover the details of her work, her writing process, and the inspiration that fuels her wild imagination:

In addition to the beauty of ruin and decadence, I can’t ignore the possibility of a social commentary that particularly reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s association in A Room of One’s Own with poverty and nourishment to the imagination (or lack thereof).  In a world and an economy where most of us have to spend most of our time working (and one’s attention in what time for entertainment is leftover is often drawn to TV or the web), what time is there for reading?  I admit, that’s bit dramatic of me.  But, there have been periods of my life in which I didn’t have time to read or if I did, I was too exhausted to focus my attention.  To ask the question more broadly: this collection seems concerned with how imagination survives in impoverishment, so how does imagination survive in a world that doesn’t value imagination for imagination’s sake (and instead prefers imagination applied to productivity, technological ingenuity, etc…)?

This issue is of genuine concern to me, and I think it comes literally from growing up poor and filling in for material lack with imagination of material decadence, hence the obsession in my work with baroque décor and artisanal niceties. I think imagination is rarely valued for anyone other than children because it is seen as impractical or naïve, but I don’t feel this way.  Perhaps because I tend toward cynicism and misanthropy, I use imagination to combat these things and to draw myself back into positive contact with individuals.  These days if someone tells me I have a great imagination, I assume that they are raising one eyebrow.  Imagination is connected with magical thinking and psychological projection, two things that breed awkwardness in a cocktail conversation. Beyond this, imagination is attached to enthusiasm, which is doubly awkward. For all that we dismiss things that don’t earn us money, at this cultural moment, I think the fear of having an awkward moment is much more damaging.

You can read the whole interview here

Wyn Cooper’s Chaos is the New Calm and Keetje Kuipers’ Beautiful in the Mouth were recently reviewed in the Midtown Review.  These reviews compare poetry to tweets, albeit the “much more complex, resonant, and luxuriant to the ear” version of tweets or status updates, in an attempt to encourage readers to turn to p0etry in the age of shortened attention spans.

The review of Cooper’s poems highlights the sonic quality of his book, which “resounds deliciously” and “lingers on the tongue.”  These poems are recommended as a “fine choice to begin your foray into the pleasures of poetry” that you should check out, but after you’ve checked your tweets, of course. The rest of the review can be read here.

How poems sound is also one of the focuses in the review of Beautiful in the Mouth, which the reviewer says is an appropriate title, as “each poem desires to be read aloud.”  Lines in her poems are called “sonorous and sensuous,” but  Kuipers’ ability to “delve deeply into her subjects,” which range in tone from “quick wit” to grief, is also pointed out.  A few lines from this review seem to summarize Kuipers’ poetic power and her place in poetry: “The place of her poems . . . is truly the embodied experience in the larger world.  She douses us in imagery that we can voice in our mouths and feel under our fingers.” The rest of the review can be found here.