BOA Blog

[caption id="attachment_1832" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Teicher, author of the forthcoming "To Keep Love Blurry""][/caption] Fall is (distantly) on its way, and with it are some spectacular new collections from BOA! One such collection is Craig Morgan Teicher's To Keep Love Blurry, which was recently praised by Library Journal for its refreshing balance of formality and playfulness. Check it out! Library Journal writes: "The majority of poems in this new work from Teicher... employ form in the best sense of the word-- as a frame, not a crutch... When at his best, Teicher's poems are formal and--as a welcome bonus-- amusing." To...

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...