BOA Blog

We love when our BOA authors come to Rochester! This afternoon, we were fortunate enough to have Peter Makuck here in the office. Peter is in the area doing readings in support of his career-spanning new collection, Long Lens: New and Selected Poems. Long Lens represents forty years of Peter’s work including twenty-five new poems - it's a fitting milestone in a dedicated poetic career. [caption id="attachment_1082" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Boo Poulin, Peter Conners, Peter Makuck, Melissa Hall"][/caption] As many of you know, this weekend we'll have two more BOA authors - Janice N. Harrington and Cecilia Woloch - here for our...

The first session of BOA's new "Writing Exercises" workshop series was held last Saturday (10/9/2010) at Midtown Athletic Club. Midtown is western New York's premiere sports resort, providing members a complete fitness, sports and social experience. Our favorite thing about Midtown is their willingness to offer non-traditional classes for their members' minds, bodies, and spirits.   BOA and Midtown came together several months ago to start planning this first session and everyone involved is thrilled with the outcome. The class featured small group writing workshops and author readings by BOA poet Christopher Kennedy and esteemed fiction writer Gary Lutz. Together, Kennedy and...

We've compiled some amazing, cool, artistic & comfy (spa treatment, anyone?) items for the Dine & Rhyme auction this year! We thought it would be fun to give you a sneak peek at some of them (with apologies for the poor level of photography here). Thanks to all the generous donors and craftspeople who are making this the best BOA auction ever! Here are two items we just received: [caption id="attachment_1068" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Original painting by Amie Freling inspired by Cecilia Woloch"][/caption]   [caption id="attachment_1069" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="One-of-a-kind handmade evening bag by Rochester designer Bryce Grantham (modeled by Melissa Hall)"][/caption]...

 Four BOA authors - Kazim Ali, Matthew Shenoda, Barbara Jane Reyes, and Alan Michael Parker - appear in the Poetry Society of America's project in which they ask the provocative question, "What's American About American Poetry?" Here's how the PSA describes the project on their website: "In November 1999, the PSA (in collaboration with Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky and the New School Writing Department) presented the festival 'What's American About American Poetry.'  In preparation for the festival, a survey with general questions about the current state of poetry in America was mailed to  poets across the country, representing a diverse...

[caption id="attachment_1048" align="alignleft" width="254" caption=""Free Radical" a portrait of Alan Michael Parker by Felicia van Bork"][/caption] "What is American about American Poetry?" That was the question posed by the Poetry Society of America upon the occasion of their centenary. BOA poet Alan Michael Parker - Love Song with Motor Vehicles (BOA, 2003) and Elephants & Butterflies (BOA, 2008) - tackled the question with his usual sense of intelligence, good humor, and linguistic acrobatics: "In my own work, the post-Romantic inheritance seems to me distinctly American; how the lyric defaults to a simplified artistic construct: experience + insight = epiphany. I spend a...