Archive for November, 2011

Cornelius Eady.

Wednesday will be the last day that you will be able to submit your manuscript for this year’s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Named after BOA Editions Founder Al Poulin, Jr. who championed the under-appreciated voices in poetry, the winner of the Poetry Prize will receive a $1,500 honorarium and be published as part of our A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series in Spring 2013.

Recent winners of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize include Deborah Brown, Keetje  Kuipers, Jennifer Kronovet, Dan Albergotti and Janice N. Harrington. Recipients of the prize have gone on to receive such awards as the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and, most recently, the New Hampshire Literary Award for “Outstanding Book of Poetry.”

This year we are thrilled to have Cornelius Eady as our final judge. Born in Rochester, NY Cornelius Eady has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and co-founded with Toi Derricote the important Cave Canem.  He is the author of eight books:   Hardheaded Weather (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008); Brutal Imagination (2001), a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award in Poetry; the autobiography of a jukebox (1997); You Don’t Miss Your Water (1995); The Gathering of My Name (1991), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; BOOM BOOM BOOM (1988); Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1985),  selected by The Academy of American Poets for the Lamont Poetry Selection; and Kartunes (1980).  You can read more about Cornelius Eady here.

Don’t wait or you will miss your chance to enter!

For more information and a copy of our submission form, please read our Guidelines.

Good Luck!

BOA staff members Albert Abonado, Melissa Hall and Peter Conners

On behalf of the staff and board of BOA Editions, we are thankful for all our authors, readers, and supporters!

In a recent Poetry Foundation podcast, BOA author Aleš Šteger discusses his most recent work, The Book of Things, as well as his creative process.

For those of you not in the know, with his first book of poems, Chessboards of Hours, published in 1995 when he was 22 years old, Aleš Šteger established himself as one of Slovenia’s most promising poets. In the decade and a half since, Šteger has more than lived up to that promise, releasing three additional books of poetry.

He’s a phenomenal poet making this podcast a real treat, so give it a listen!

Click here for the podcast

and here if you’re looking to pick up a copy of Šteger’s The Book of Things.

Cornelius Eady.

November 30th, 2011 will be the last day that you will be able to submit your manuscript for this year’s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, so don’t forget to mark your calendars!  The winner will receive a $1,500 honorarium and will be published as part of our A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series in Spring 2013.

Now in it’s 11th year, winners of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize include Deborah Brown, Keetje  Kuipers, Jennifer Kronovet, Dan Albergotti and Janice N. Harrington. Recipients of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize have gone on to receive such awards as the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and, most recently, the New Hampshire Literary Award for “Outstanding Book of Poetry.”

The final judge for this year’s contest is Cornelius Eady, a  co-founder of Cave Canem nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his book The Gathering of My Name. His awards include Fellowships from the NEA, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.  Don’t miss your chance to enter this contest and join our esteemed line of poets!

For more information and a copy of our submission form, please read our Guidelines.

Good Luck!

Scott Cheshire of the Tottenville Review recently reviewed Joseph Salvatore’s debut collection of short stories, To Assume a Pleasing Shape. The review focuses on Salvatore’s ability to make the process of internal thought fluid, interesting, intelligent, and re-readable.

“Salvatore’s writing is the kind that invites re-reading, and freely dipping in here and there. This kind of writing is rare.”

The review goes on to explain that these short stories are “are lovingly drawn portraits of painful inner lives in largely threatening liminal spaces, those heartbreaking and often hilarious border moments just before our world decides to right itself, or maybe go terribly wrong.”

The reviewer, Scott Cheshire, genuinely understands and enjoys the relationship Salvatore’s work has with the mind and body and the cultural perception of both. “But Salvatore’s great talent,” Cheshire explains, “is in his ability to orchestrate and represent that liminal space that is a part of ‘post-modernity’s’ problematic legacy -  we know too much, even as we know way too little.”

Salvatore’s debut collection is fluid and fully realized and places the reader directly into the mind and body of each and every character. And “while most debut story collections are varied, rather hit and miss, usually because they represent a writer’s evolution through style and subject matter, Salvatore seems to have arrived fully formed.”

Link to the review is right here

Link to purchase the book is right here

If you haven’t heard already, big things are just around the corner here in Rochester! On December 8, 2011, an epic one-day giving event, ROC the Day, will take place. On this day thousands of community members will be able to make an end-of-year gift to help advance their philanthropic passions, by making online donations to the area not-for-profit of their choice.

It’s like a telethon…without the phones…

BOA is on the list of not-for-profits participating in this year’s ROC the Day event, so please, click here to go to BOA’s ROC the Day webpage, check out what we’ve been up to, and on December 8, 2011, take part in a truly unique event and support BOA!

We are thrilled to announce that the New Hampshire Writer’s Project has awarded Deborah Brown’s Walking the Dog’s Shadow their “Outstanding Poetry Book” award. The award, which is given to a poet’s outstanding book or chapbook of poetry every two or three years, has previously been won by such writers as Charles Simic and Maxine Kumin.

Deborah Brown’s collection was selected  by Tony Hoagland as the 2010 winner of BOA’s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Walking the Dog’s Shadow was published in April 2011.

We hope you will check out these poems and more on Deborah Brown if you have not already in the BOA store and find more info on the New Hampshire Literary Awards here.

This is a good time to mention that the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions.  This year’s distinguished judge is Cornelius Eady.

BOA Editions is very happy to announce that Hey Small Press! has selected two of our books for their November list.  For those unfamiliar with Hey Small Press!, it is are a relatively new non-profit that does the good work of promoting independent publishers to public libraries around the United States.  From the Hey Small Press! website:

“We are Hey Small Press!, a non-profit project promoting independent publishers to public libraries all over the United States. Founded by current and former public library employees, we exist to encourage libraries to acquire small and independent press books. We love good books and want them on library shelves!

Our method is three-fold. One: we select and review ten new or upcoming titles per month. Two: we send our list to public librarians and encourage them to order the titles. Three: we also make available all our reviews to the public. Our goal is for readers across the country to walk into their public library every month with our list of small press books and encourage librarians to order them.

Our long term goals include regional book lists, poetry and non-fiction lists, and the organizing and promotion of live readings by small press writers in public libraries.”

For the month of November they selected both Carsten René Nielsen’s House Inspections and Joseph Salvatore’s To Assume a Pleasing Shape. In their review of House Inspections, they point to the craft apparent in each of Nielsen’s prose poems, which they describe as “beautifully written, beautifully translated, and bestow a calm wit,” and according to their review of  To Assume a Pleasing Shape, Joseph Salvatore’s collection of short stories are “addictive.”  Hey Small Press found that the “moving and jocular narratives make this collection well worth the read.”  Thanks again to Hey Small Press! for selecting these two fine books.

For more information on Hey Small Press! please visit their site: http://heysmallpress.org/

And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to pick up copies of House Inspections and To Assume a Pleasing Shape from our bookstore.

The story of how Your Father on the Train of Ghosts was conceived by two esteemed poets, emailing back and forth pieces of poems, has become, for some, as interesting as the poems themselves. However, as Mike Walker of Coal Hill explains in his review, “the proof of the pudding must be in the eating, not in the size of the kitchen, the name of the chef, or anything else.”

At first, Walker admits, he “wondered how well the innovative concept of shared writing of poetry via email would work out” and even feared that the Waldrep he’d “come to so greatly respect would be washed of his distinct voice in a tandem effort.” But Walker explains that as it turns out, there was “no reason to worry […] because Gallaher and Waldrep develop on these pages an uncanny, consummate, ability to write cohesive poems that while united in tenor retain each man’s own voice and come together like a fabric made by an ultra-lux fashion house.”

Walker’s review goes out of its way to assure to readers that this collection of poems is not just an experiment or a quick exercise in writing, but that this book is “ample in length and very serious in tone – encompassing in quality and scope.”

To read the full review click here

To purchase a copy of Your Father On the Train of Ghosts click here

In all honesty, you should probably do both.

Kim Addonizio, photo by Joe Allen

Kim Addonizio released Tell Me in 2000. The title invites us to sit and let it all out… and that’s exactly what Addonizio does. The poems in part 1, “The Singing,” introduce us to Kim’s” letting it out,” night after night wondering who else is still awake in her neighborhood of bars and weary voices.  In “Target” Addonizio shoots a gun with so much satisfaction that we wonder when we’ll get our chance to fire. Come to think of it, maybe it’s about that time:

It feels so good to shoot a gun,
to stand with your legs apart
holding a nine millimeter in both hands
aiming at something that can’t run.
Over and over I rip holes

Time and time again throughout Tell Me, Addonizio shows herself as a woman with as much control over her voice as she has over a handgun.

In fact, Tell Me reveals a poet’s voice so intimate, so close, you feel compelled to turn the book over to the cover and say “there she is, right there just like in the poem” and wonder if someone is about to come up and hit on her in that dingy bar.

“Blue Door,” “Last Call” and “Good Girl” are sections 2, 3 and 4 of the book. ”Good Girl” contains the poem “‘What Do Women Want?’” which has become an Addonizio classic many times reprinted:

“What Do Women Want?”

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

Tell Me was a 2000 finalist for the National Book Award for poetry.

Kim Addonizio’s writer profile and books can be found here.
Tell Me is available in the BOA store here.