BOA Blog

As Black History Month comes to a close, this is your friendly reminder to read the work of Black authors year-round! Finish February or start March by snagging one of our recent or forthcoming titles below, recommended by BOA's fantastic spring 2022 intern staff!  Alien Stories by E. C. Osondu Alien Stories is a dynamic interplay between the two meanings of the word alien: a person from a foreign country or a being from a foreign planet. Each story confronts some aspect of the “alien” experience—reception, culture shock, identity, stereotypes—from a diverse set of individual and historical perspectives. Osondu’s work...

Happy Halloween! At BOA, we prefer treats over tricks, and our treat to you is this list of spooky titles to help you get into the Halloween spirit! Grab a title or two today!  Caw by Michael Waters In passionate poems about sin, obsession, and mortality—an artist’s infatuation with a doll, an interspecies relationship, an ex-lover whose presence lingers in recipes, ecclesiastical birds, and a sex toy holding a loved one’s ashes—Waters delivers impeccably crafted narratives infused with his signature lyrical gestures. At the book’s core is a sequence of twenty-five poems on aging, dementia, and caregiving, chiseled phrase by...

Hi readers! Join our summer interns as they peruse over 40 years of our publication history and share their passion for some of their favorite titles from BOA Editions. In this post, Em D. looks at the book Documents by Jan-Henry Gray.  "Across Legal Records and Remembered Recollections" Jan-Henry Gray’s Documents, a recent publication from 2019, explores what it means to be undocumented in America. Jan-Henry himself immigrated to the United States with his parents from the Philippines when he was six, and later learned of his legal status when he was a minor. As a working class family, obtaining legal immigration status is like an impossible...

June is a prodigious month to celebrate Lucille Clifton’s life and work. Born on this day, June 27, in 1936, her singular poetry spans over fifty years. Clifton’s posthumous collection, How To Carry Water: Selected Poems Of Lucille Clifton, edited by Aracelis Girmay (BOA, 2020) releases in paperback this Fall 2021. Lucille Clifton’s many accolades and awards include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Frost Medal, and an Emmy Award. BOA Editions published nine books by Lucille Clifton, including Quilting, Mercy, Voices, and the following extraordinary collections. Blessing The Boats won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2000. Next:...

June is Pride Month, a welcome celebration to increase visibility, acceptance and share in the resilience of the queer community. We’ve compiled a selection of BOA books by queer authors that showcase the varied experiences of the queer community. These authors exist at different intersections of identities, whether that’s being a person of color, an immigrant, a single mother, or having a disability, and all share in the universal community of being queer. True vulnerability exists within these pages, as these wonderful authors celebrate, negotiate, and trouble what Pride means. Queerness comes in many forms; no matter how you identify,...