Archive for the ‘BOA Classics’ Category

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.

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.

It’s been a long while since we’ve done any blog entries on some of BOA’s classics, so today we’re going to bring you back to Anthony Tognazzini’s collection of short stories, I Carry A Hammer In My Pocket For Occasions Such As These, BOA’s first collection of short fiction, published in 2007, and still an undeniably keen new voice in the form.

Smart and innovative, Hammer is a refreshingly quirky read and is at one time abstract and yet completely relevant. Tognazzini deals with life, relationships, the mundane and the cosmic, often all at once. His stories remind one of absurdist, surrealist paintings, bits of everyday life into which have intruded the strange, oddly-natural tendrils of something completely alien, and yet still carry themselves in such a way as to suggest that it is our world which is disjointed, and not his. In one story, the narrator finds himself flattened by an escalator because he was pondering the grand questions of life. In another, the reader is placed in the center of an art museum and eavesdrops on the visitors walking by. Tognazzini demonstrates more than just a spark on ingenuity, but creates a work that overflows with creativity and fun amidst a sea of more heavy, serious pieces. Yet there are still very difficult, personal aspects to his work that, combined with the oft-ridiculous events and frequent dalliances with hysteria and psychosis, point out to us the reader the inherent transience and silliness in some of our heaviest issues. In each brief piece, Tognazzini reaches an intriguing, but unexpected, depth as he captures the mind and heart of the reader.

We had a great response to the Ko Un brush paintings we posted here last week, so here’s another goodie from our translation files. Whenver possible, our translations include a handwritten poem by the author which we scan and print in the books. Today’s handwritten poem is by Turkish poet Ece Temelkuran from her collection Book of the Edge. In addition to being a world-class poet, Temelkuran is an award-winning journalist for one of Turkey’s most popular newspapers. You can read all about her at her website: Ece Temelkuran.

Ece Temelkuran. BOA poet.

Book of the Edge was translated by a dynamic young translator named Deniz Perin. Here’s a little from Deniz’s Introduction to the book:

“The poems in Book of the Edge are not overtly political. Some are not political at all. Those that make political statements do so in an understated, allegorical way. Temelkuran’s goal in these poems is to explore the human condition, exposing our weaknesses and our potential. But her insight into, and interpretation of, this human condition are undoubtedly inspired, at least in part, by her socially-involved upbringing and her many years of work as a journalist.
    “The book is, to use Baudelaire’s words, an invitation to a voyage. The speaker asks the reader to become an explorer, to leave the city and embark upon a journey of self-discovery. Although each poem stands alone, the poems work together to describe this quest; they turn into a modern, poetic fable, in which speaker, explorer, and reader merge into one. ‘You may not know it yet,’ says the speaker in the prologue, a wink at what is to come. ‘You are just like me.’”

And, finally, we come to Ece Temelkurans’ handwritten poem. When all is said and done, is there anything in literature more intimate than a handwritten poem?

Handwritten poem by Ece Temelkuran

We got great feedback on yesterday’s post of Ko Un paintings from Flowers of a Moment (BOA, 2006) translated by Brother Anthony of Taizè , Gary Gach, and Young-moo Kim. So we decided to share some more riches today!

Ko Un #7

Ko Un #8

Ko Un #9

Ko Un #10

Ko Un #11

Publishing poetry-in-translation has always been a key part of BOA’s activities. Want proof? Just check out BOA’s distinguished list of translated poetry titles: [BOA Translations]. Our dedication to translation stepped up a notch when the Lannan Foundation of Santa Fe, New Mexico began providing funding to support our translated books, including generous honorariums to both poets and translators. Since that time, BOA has published 18 translations through our Lannan Translations Selection Series. In each translation, we also include a handwritten poem by the poet which we build into the interior design of the book. In the case of Flowers of a Moment (BOA, 2006) we had the unique opportunity to include brush paintings by the author as well. And since the author is internationally celebrated Korean poet Ko Un – and the paintings worked in perfect conjunction with the text – we took the opportunity to design the book especially to accomodate Ko Un’s poems and paintings. The result is

With 33 years of publishing under our belt, BOA has accumulated rich archives of letters, reviews, and miscellaneous literary riches. We thought it would be fun to share some of these classics with you. “BOA Classics” will be a trip back in time and also a chance to remember some treasures of American and international literature. Enjoy!

1977 NBCC Nomination for The Fuhrer Bunker

Purchase The Fuhrer Bunker [Here]