BOA Blog

Polish writer Jacek Gutorow's most recent collection, The Folding Star and Other Poems (BOA, 2012) has been saluted by Hey, Small Press! as one of the top reads on this month's book list. A poet, translator, and literary critic, Gutorow has published five books of poems and five collections of critical essays, and has received some of the most significant literary awards in Poland. According to Hey, Small Press!, Gutorow's The Folding Star and Other Poems is "meditative and beautiful, his diction fragile and clear- thanks in no small part to the wonderful work of translator Piotr Florczyk." Gutorow's work...

Recently, Ryan Teitman's Litany for the City was reviewed and highly praised by Mary: Journal of New Writing. The careful and thoughtful review catches on (and gives full credit and appreciation) to all the finer details of Teitman's new book.  Highlighted are the skills Teitman employs through his language and other poetic devices:  from his choice of the word "litany" to his use of the preposition "for" in the book's title. Called "impressive" by the review, it is suggested that the artfulness of Litany for the City comes from Teitman's ability to balance "curiosity about present and ancient cities" without...

Mere weeks into the new year, The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, set to be released by BOA this September, is already being called a 2012 must-read by reviewer Craig Morgan Teicher from NPR Books. In a composite review of 8 highly recommended poetry collections for 2012, Teicher puts Clifton’s at the top of the list. He praises her work by suggesting to readers that - should they only read one poetry book in 2012 - Clifton’s new collection “ought to be it.” As excitement builds for the release of this monumental book, which contains all of Clifton’s published (and a...

[caption id="attachment_1446" align="alignleft" width="133" caption="Michael Waters' Gospel Night "][/caption] Matthew Guenette of the Southern Indiana Review's "First Takes with Matthew Guenette" asks himself "What is in the work of a title?" After reading Waters' tenth collection of poems, Guenette finds the poet's ability to provoke tension from diction something worth turning over and over again while considering both words of the title. The "work of this title," as Guenette writes, conclusively demonstrates the mastery of word choice and form to be found in each poem of the collection. Guenette sees the four sections of Gospel Night as individual guides for...

Adam McOmber admits he's been an ardent fan of the macabre and horror genre since high school. His own writing reflects the exquisitely unhiemlich, "the fantastic moments when the strange breaks through our daily grind." In a recent interview with the New School's LIT writer Mike Gillis, McOmber talks about his passion for the mythology and the fiction like his This New and Poisonous Air and the upcoming Empyrean. "I think that these type of stories- stories of the fantastic- reach back to mythology. Because that's what myths are," he said in a phone interview. "I think humans in general...