Archive for April, 2011

University of Rochester’s Three Percent took a look at Aleš Šteger’s The Book of Things and bestowed equal praise on the author and translator Brian Henry alike.  Henry is commended for matching the sophistication of Šteger’s writing in his translation, particularly in his replications of “tone and sound play of the Slovenian originals.”

The sophistication of translation is also remarkable given the “complex layering” that “is characteristic of Šteger’s poems.”  The review also praises Šteger for his “dry, observant humor” and his imagery, both “dark” and “descriptive.”

“It’s one of the best collections of poetry in translation in recent memory,” and you can read the rest of the review on Three Percent’s website.

The Book of Things is a finalist for the Best Translated Book of the Year Award in Poetry. The winners will be announced tonight in a ceremony at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC. Our fingers are crossed for The Book of Things and its talented author and translator!

A review of Sean Thomas Dougherty’s Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line is in the current issue of H_NG M_N, an online journal of poetry, prose, etc.  The reviewer highlights the book’s “back-story,” a story in which “Dougherty, a self-described underground sound, makes music of his comings and goings, of his staying home for a while and then traveling out into the world again.”

The review goes on to note the importance of sound in these lyric poems, which “[hang] these sounds out like shirts and pants and socks between the highest stories, lines of words patterned between our hearing and seeing and speaking with one another, and [ask] us to register the songs of joy and sorrow heard there.”

Singing Dougherty’s praises, the reviewer ends his article with more appreciation for the author and his book: “It’s hard to imagine a bigger-hearted collection than Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line.  If only more poets had the courage and fortitude to fashion poems out of the people they know and love, as well as the strangers they see and hear day to day….”

The rest of the review can be read here.

This New & Poisonous Air. Stories by Adam McOmber.

Adam McOmber’s forthcoming book, This New & Poisonous Air, was recently reviewed by Donna Seaman for Booklist.  The review in its entirety is printed here:

“In his first book, a collection of short stories that ventures into fable, myth, and fairy tale, McOmber’s language is so finely burnished it nearly achieves invisibility.  Most of these mysterious tales are set in the past, and all involve strange, even macabre embodiments of forbidden passions. in the title story, a girl abandoned by her father after the bubonic plague claims her mother adapts to the ‘new and poisonous air.’  A seventeenth-century inventor in France, thwarted in his love for a handsome dancer, builds a wondrous, if unnerving, mechanical garden, the first of many alternative worlds McOmber imagines in which his heartbroken characters attempt to take refuge.  Marie Tussaud prefers her wax figures to those of flesh and blood following the French Revolution.  A lonely English lord, forced to hide his feelings for other men, immerses himself in the exploits of an imaginary knight.  A town’s rapture in a movie palace takes on sinister dimensions.  Eerie, sorrowful, and disquieting, McOmber’s exquisite tales of taboo longings brilliantly illuminate the gossamer divide between loss and love, madness and reason, death and life.”

Remnants of Another Age. Poems by Nikola Madzirov.

3:AM Magazine writer SJ Fowler recently conducted an interview with BOA Editions poet Nikola Madzirov. Madzirov’s new book, Remnants of Another Age, came out March 15th, but, as Fowler points out in his introduction, Madzirov is already a significant, seasoned author in Macedonia.

The interviewer poses questions that span the length and breadth of Madzirov’s poetic career, but also asks him to consider what it means to be a Macedonian poet, and what the feeling for poetry is in his home country.

Madzirov’s response is charcteristically lyric and thoughtful:

I do not believe in everlasting national poetic concepts. We share the language of our childhood, the common pain and expectations of the ancestors whose words cannot be dug up at any archaeological site; we shared the films and books carefully selected by the groups responsible for invisible censorship and the long struggle between the pagan traditions and Christianity that always ends in assimilation. All these things connect us in one family that uses the same language, but different concepts of selfhood and (m)otherhood. Individualism was the main form of aesthetic radicalization and so it is today.

Interestingly, Madzirov also posits that “It is tragic if poetry is regarded as a way of confirming the stories of official histories. Poetry testifies or leaves secrets, but only through its own identity and fragile presence.”

The rest of this insightful interview is available through 3:AM Magazine’s website.

This past Saturday, BOA participated in its own version of the “flash mob”: the Pop-Up Poetry Reading. This took place at the Rochester Contemporary Arts Center at both 1 and 4 in the afternoon. The phrase “BOA Is Here” was the cue that the reading had begun!

Below are photos from the event, which included readings from Cindy Rogers, Bernadette Catalana, and Peter Conners.

Cindy Rogers	Bernadette Catalana
	Peter Conners

Matthew Shenoda. BOA Poet

Adrian Matejka recently interviewed Matthew Shenoda, author of Seasons of Louts, Seasons of Bone for the Ploughshares blog, noting that it is “[t]hrough Matthew’s work, we learn poetry is both about speaking up and about surviving and as long as we do these things, ‘they just cannot touch us.’”

In the thought-provoking interview, Matthew’s discussion with Adrian Matejka centers on the political dimensions of Matthew’s writing, asking for Matthew’s thoughts on the recent turmoil in Libya and Egypt as well as how the worlds of art and politics intersect.  For Matthew, a “disengaged artist is of little use to society-at-large.” He asks “Is it not the job of the artist to explore in all of its glory and ugliness the world which we call home and is all of what you are mentioning not a central part of that?”

You can read more from the interview on the Ploughshares blog here.

The Black Warrior Review recently interviewed author G. C. Waldrep who responded openly and insightfully to prompts about his life and work.  In the interview, Waldrep discussed the effort and energy that went into his forthcoming collaboration with John Gallaher (Your Father on the Train of Ghosts) and also the difficulty of tandemly revising these poems.

Waldrep also addresses his spirituality and his time spent living in the Amish community in an in-depth and reflective way.  As he says, “since [he] had devoted so much of [his] life at that point spiritually and temporally to community–not having a community, it was like a divorce.”

Finally, Waldrep’s connection to music and the musicality of his poems are also discussed, which helped to illuminate his process behind and views of his own work, particularly that of his “music book” and “special child,” Archicembalo.

To read this complete and insightful interview with G. C. Waldrep, click here.

BOA is putting our own spin on “flash mobs” and we’re starting this Saturday (4/16) in Rochester!

Just show up at Rochester Contemporary Art Center (137 East Ave.) at 1PM and again at 4PM. When you hear someone in the gallery say “BOA Is Here” and begin reading a poem, you’ll know what’s going on!

BOA Editions is proud to be a part of the 6×6x2011: Global event sponsored by the Rochester Contemporary Art Center. This year, BOA employees have constructed BOA-themed miniature masterpieces.

According to Rochester Contemporary Art Center, “The 6×6 event began as a small fundraising project, but has grown into an international art phenomenon. Last year over 5,000 artworks from 43 US states and 22 countries were entered in this exhibition!” BOA is thrilled to be a part of this endeavor this year. This year will be the fourth year that the exhibition has taken place.

Below are some of BOA’s contributions:

Learn more about 6×6 and Rochester Contemporary Art Center at their websites:

6×6

RoCo

Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre,  part of the English Department at Oxford Brookes University, will tell you it has four main objectives. These include promoting contemporary poetry locally and to assist in the connection and correspondence between poets. The Centre’s website and newsletter chooses a poem/poet every week to praise and “publish.” This week, they made a great decision in sharing with the reading community the poem “Big Band Theory” by Sharon Bryan. Bryan’s book Sharp Stars, published by BOA Editions, won the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award in 2009.