BOA Blog

A review of Sean Thomas Dougherty's Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line is in the current issue of H_NG M_N, an online journal of poetry, prose, etc.  The reviewer highlights the book's "back-story," a story in which "Dougherty, a self-described underground sound, makes music of his comings and goings, of his staying home for a while and then traveling out into the world again." The review goes on to note the importance of sound in these lyric poems, which "[hang] these sounds out like shirts and pants and socks between the highest stories, lines of words patterned between our...

[caption id="attachment_1017" align="aligncenter" width="196" caption="This New & Poisonous Air. Stories by Adam McOmber."][/caption] Adam McOmber's forthcoming book, This New & Poisonous Air, was recently reviewed by Donna Seaman for Booklist.  The review in its entirety is printed here: "In his first book, a collection of short stories that ventures into fable, myth, and fairy tale, McOmber's language is so finely burnished it nearly achieves invisibility.  Most of these mysterious tales are set in the past, and all involve strange, even macabre embodiments of forbidden passions. in the title story, a girl abandoned by her father after the bubonic plague claims...

Publishers Weekly recently gave This New & Poisonous Air a star review, calling Adam McOmber's style "sinuous" and "antiquated."  The reviewer states, "Writing with a sure hand and an impressive imagination, McOmber depicts that seamless scrim between the real and imagined." As a part of BOA's American Readers Series, This New and Poisonous Air is set to be released this summer. Read the full review along with others here [caption id="attachment_1017" align="alignnone" width="196" caption="This New & Poisonous Air. Stories by Adam McOmber."][/caption]

Recently, Coal Hill Review contributor John Samuel Tieman offered a thoughtful, philosophical response to Sean Thomas Dougherty's Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line. Tieman describes Dougherty as "a landscape artist...like Studs Terkel walking along Division Street in Chicago, describing immigrants and drug addicts, the denizens and detritus of urban America." He also lauds Dougherty's ability to fluxuate between "epistolary description" and "prose riffs" seamlessly. Tieman engages Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line in a deeply personal and philosophical inquiry, even in the space of such a small review. As a result, the tone is curious and reverent, and...

Barbara Jane Reyes's Diwata continues to attract attention for poems whose lines are "lyrical and mystical in their rhythm."  In Galatea Resurrects, G. Justin Hulog's perceptive review explores the mythological concerns of Diwata, placing into context the cultural and historical implications of Barbara's poems: "In her poetic musings, we see the concerns of the Filipino diaspora brought to life: the desire to reclaim our pre-colonial past, the lament of colonialism, the search for an “authentic” voice, the terror of rape and war, the universal struggle to translate ourselves and, perhaps most importantly, our capacity to dream." G. Justin Hulong boldly...