Archive for October, 2011

It has been a great week for BOA: Publishers Weekly has printed no fewer than three poetry reviews on some of our most recent books. Aracelis Girmay’s Kingdom Animalia and Michael Waters’ Gospel Night receive spot-on responses. We are very happy to share that The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home by Janice N. Harrington has a starred review containing such comments as: “Both attendants and patients emerge as humans, as people with tough tasks and inner lives, in these pellucid, scary, morally resonant poems.”

So too did Kingdom Animalia get the spotlight. It is almost as if she “needed to write this entire book” just to get past the voice of her last book, so that she could “reflect on her own life,” PW says; here she takes up “America and its history.”

“Serious passions, homages and memories, scenes described with anger or affection” make up Gospel Night. “Waters excels at stark-eyed, honest elegies–for an influential teacher who killed himself, for Johnny Cash; and the poet’s own father all rendered in the strong free verse that is Waters’ signature.”

These Publishers Weekly reviews can be read by clicking on the links:
Aracelis Girmay’s Kingdom Animalia: here.
Michael Waters’ Gospel Night here
Janice N. Harrington’s The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home here

The Poetry Foundation maintains a list of “bestsellers” in the poetry world. Naomi Shihab Nye’s new book Transfer debuted there at #13 and quickly scooted up to #6. So what does it all mean? Well, it means a bunch of people are discovering what an amazing new book Naomi has just published. We humbly recommend you check it out too… 

Transfer, as well as more information about the book and Naomi Shihab Nye can be found in the BOA bookstore.

On September 18, 2011 BOA held our annual Dine & Rhyme celebration at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. Those who were fortunate enough to attend were treated to an astonishing, wide-ranging poetry reading by BOA poets Keetje Kuipers, Aracelis Girmay, and Michael Waters. We’re pleased to announce that those readings in the entirety are now posted on BOA’s YouTube page: 

2011 Dine & Rhyme videos 

Whether your re-living that magical night or seeing it for the first time, these are share-worthy videos of three diverse and dynamic poets.

Enjoy!

Keetje Kuipers unwinding after her Dine & Rhyme reading

Mike Walker of Coal Hill Review argues that while the subject matter of Naomi Shihab Nye’s Transfer is a common topic of discussion, Nye somehow manages to make her collection of poems the most intimate conversation in the room.

In Transfer, Nye draws on her Palestinian-American heritage without ever getting swallowed up by the current state of politics, or even just our expectations of the Middle East as Americans.

Walker explains that as Americans, we are fully aware of the Middle East and the questions at hand, “but too often we get the same images over and over again, and they fail to be inclusive of the great diversity of the region. Not here, though, not with Nye.”

“Other Arab-American, Arab, and Islamic poets are of course presenting work concerned with the crucial intersections of faith, politics, culture and war, but what makes Nye very special and worthwhile in this book is her constant focus on her own experience and the personal journey she’s undertaken. Beyond the emphasis on the Middle East, she has a more personal focus on her own father and his journey to America.”

Nye’s focus in Transfer is reinforced with refreshing use of language, which Walker describes as “mordant, precise, yet like the very best of non-fiction, it makes itself personal in tenor without being explicit in persona.”

To read the full review, click here. It’s good. I promise.

And to pick up a copy of Nye’s Transfer, click here

This year, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Creative Writing Fellowships in poetry. We’re proud to say that four BOA authors were included among the 2011 recipients; Richard Foerster, Aracelis Girmay, Christopher Kennedy, and Celcilia Woloch.

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector.

To read some work by our authors, or the 38 other recipients, click here (and prepare to have your mind blown).

Here’s another BOA blast from the not-so-past! In case you’re just jumping on board now, starting this fall BOA will be featuring previously published titles on the blog. At the beginning of every month we’ll feature a new title that BOA has published in the past, and offer you the opportunity to take a look at where BOA’s been in addition to where we are now and where we’re going.

The BOA Classic for this month is Dorianne Laux’s collection of poetry, Smoke, originally published in 2000. It is a gripping collection of life, love, and loss. Each poem in turn moves the collection through understanding life in death, life in transition, and life in beauty. The poems each glow with vibrant imagery and vivid texture. Laux is contemplative, genuine, and honest. She and her narrator welcome the reader in to experience the mind, heart, and soul of another.

Dorianne Laux was born in Augusta, Maine. She began writing seriously after moving to Berkley, California, and received her BA in English from Mills College. Some of her other collections published by BOA include What We Carry, a finalist for the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award, and Awake, her first book of poetry, for which she was nominated for the San Francisco Bay Area Book Critics Award for Poetry. She won a Pushcart Prize for Poetry, two Fellowships for the National Endowment for the Arts, two Best American Poetry Prizes, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Oregon.