Jillian Weise Wins the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award

Rochester, NY—Jillian Weise has been awarded the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award for her new collection, The Book of Goodbyes. Her book will be published by BOA Editions in fall 2013. This award is given biennially to a poet with a new book of exceptional merit. Manuscripts are solicited and there is no formal submission process for this award.

Poet, actress, and associate editor of Poetry magazine, Isabella Gardner (1915-1981) published five celebrated collections of poetry and was the first recipient of the New York State Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for Poetry. She championed the work of young and gifted poets, helping many of them find publication. This award carries an honorarium of $1000 and is sponsored by the Gardner Charitable Trust. Poets Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Michael Blumenthal (both former recipients of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award) assisted in judging the award with the final selection being made by BOA Publisher Peter Conners.

Jillian Weise is the author of The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and The Colony (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press, 2010). Her poem “Incision” was selected for Poetry Everywhere, the short film series produced by PBS and the Poetry Foundation. Her work has appeared in A Public Space, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Tin House and the anthology Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. She studied at Florida State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Cincinnati. She traveled to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina on a Fulbright Fellowship, and spent two years as a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She teaches at Clemson and co-directs the Annual Clemson Literary Festival.

BOA Editions, Ltd., the Rochester-based Pulitzer-Prize- and National-Book-Award-winning publishing house, received a 2001 New York State Governor’s Arts Award for overall artistic excellence. Now in its 35th year, BOA has published more than 200 books of American poetry, poetry in translation, fiction, and other literature.

Should you find yourself in Syracuse, NY this Friday (Feb 3, 2012), you should definitely check out BOA poet Janice Harrington’s reading at the YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center!

Janice Harrington’s first book of poetry, Even the Hollow My Body Made is Gone, won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize from BOA Editions as well as the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her second book of poetry, The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home, which was also published by BOA Editions, came out in 2011. She is also the winner of a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Poetry.

Harrington will be reading from both of her books of poetry this Friday and if you haven’t read them already, believe me, they are truly remarkable.

Again, the reading is this Friday (Feb 3, 2012) at 7:00 pm and since Valentines Day is right around the corner, you should probably bring a date!

For directions to the Y’s Downtown Writer’s Center click here, the address is 340 Montgomery Street, Syracuse, NY 13202

click here for a copy of The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home

BOA authors [from left]: Christopher Kennedy, Michael Waters, and Keetje Kuipers,  who will peform readings at the convention.

 Readers, writers, and other literary enthusiasts, take note: The NeMLA 43^rd Annual Convention is set to take place March 15-18 in Rochester, NY, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Riverside Convention Center, downtown.

The convention is truly a literary nirvana: from poetry, play, and fiction readings, to panels, roundtables, workshops, and more – all centering on the theme of “Creative Writing and Editing” – attendees will have much to explore, learn, and treasure through the experience.

BOA Editions will play a large part in convention, occupying a significant portion of the weekend’s Schedule of Events.

A panel workshop entitled “World of the Small Press,” designed and organized by BOA Editor Peter Conners, will be held from 11:30am – 2pm Thursday, March 15. The panel will feature Conners, as well as Chad Post of Open Letter Books, and Ted Pelton of Starcherone Books, as they clue listeners into the daily life and functioning – closely-held secrets, if you will – of small presses. This is a great opportunity for listeners to learn how to start and sustain small presses, to identify ways to develop and strengthen ties with area institutions, and to better understand the interests and purposes of small presses – which could increase chances of getting published or becoming an editor. This panel is designed to meet you where your particular interests are at, so that you will leave with a concrete plan for the next steps toward your literary future. A light lunch will also be provided – an added plus!

Thursday’s convention schedule will  also feature a “Welcome Reading and Reception”  at 7pm, with a reading by special guest Cornelius Eady, contest judge for BOA’s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.

In addition to the large aggregation of events for the weekend – surely to keep you busy – BOA Editions will be specially showcased on Friday afternoon, March 16, from 4:45 – 6:15pm. Readings by BOA authors Christopher Kennedy, Michael Waters, and Keetje Kuipers, will highlight the exhibition.

The Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) is a scholarly organization interested in encouraging and continuing scholarly discourse among professionals of modern languages through its annual convention.

Take advantage of this opportunity to expand your understanding of small presses like BOA, to appreciate some of the quality literature of today, and to move forward in your literary endeavors.

Click here for registration information.

Click here for the convention’s Schedule of Events.

Winnette asks fantastic questions which really get to the core of Parker’s thoughts, recurring themes, and literary elements. In a way, this piece is a thorough and captivating review of Parker’s work, as much as it is an interview with the author.

Parker, who has written works of poetry, novels, short fiction, non-fiction essays and criticism, and edited collections, tries to explore the boundaries between what a reader knows and learns. Poems should teach the reader how to read. All writings: poems, novels, short stories, should put your perceptions at risk; though some genres do this through sentences, and some through lines. Some works have music-like quality, like poetry, while others – like paragraphs – have wholeness as acts of thought.

What can we expect from a piece or collection of poetry? What is it that poetry can and should do to and for the reader? What is the fundamental difference between poetry and fiction? Is it structural, aesthetic? Find out how Parker and Winnette approach these problems and more over at WordRiot.

As excitement builds for the release of this monumental book, which contains all of Clifton’s published (and a number of unpublished) poems, readers and reviewers will likely ruminate on the qualities which make her poetry so captivating and abiding, even after her passing.

This is a big year for Clifton’s readers – let the anticipation begin!

Click here to read Teicher’s review [Not Your Parents' Poems: A 2012 Poetry Review]

You can read “The One Who Writes,” and other selected poems here.

To buy Remnants of Another Age, visit the Boa Bookstore.

Watch Weekly Poem: From ‘Movements Forward, Movements Away’ on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

PBS NewsHour is featuring Peter Conners, publisher at BOA Editions, as their Poet of the Week due to his imaginative prose in “Movements Forward, Movements Away.” The poem captures the reader from the beginning till end. Watch the video above to hear Peter’s reading or click here to visit PBS to read the excerpt as well.

GO PETER!!!!!