Don Share, editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine, recently selected Richard Garcia’s The Chair as a "Best Poetry Collection of 2015" for Literary Hub. Released by BOA in late 2014, the book is composed primarily of prose poetry.

Share says: "It is a dire—and common—fate for a superb book of poems to be overlooked, especially in a year like this past one during which so many wonderful books garnered prizes, acclaim, and media attention. Less familiar, perhaps, is another misfortune: that of the book published late in the year. A fall or winter publication date will occlude the reputation of a fine book because most year-end lists and awards are finished well before the first frost hits. For me, a poet who ought to have received far more attention in 2015 is Richard Garcia."

Calling Garcia's poetry "lucid, vivid, humane, acute, accessible, and delightful," Share suggests: “...with The Chair, Garcia proves himself to be a master of prose poetry. Prose poetry is notoriously hard to judge, because it’s notoriously hard to be good at it: most of it is terrible, and has no reason to exist. The few contemporary Americans who’ve excelled at it—Mark Strand, Franz Wright, James Tate, Russell Edson—were rueful in a way that, thankfully, Garcia is not; I wish they had lived to read The Chair. If they had, maybe like me, they’d also have loved rereading it."

Click here for Literary Hub's complete list of "Best Poetry Collections of 2015."

The Chair is available now at the BOA Bookstore. To celebrate BOA's 40th anniversary year, we're offering 40% off all BOA Bookstore orders through January. Use promo code BOATURNS40 at checkout to save!