BOA Blog

Greetings, BOA readers! I'm Mckayla, one of the fall interns at BOA Editions. It was my great pleasure to sit down over email with Poulin Prize-winner and Iraq War veteran Hugh Martin to ask him a few questions about his experience serving overseas as well as his newest book, In Country.   When did you write the first poem for this collection? Did you start writing any of these poems while you were serving in Iraq? How has your process changed since you started writing these poems? While in Iraq, I did not write any poems but did keep a journal with very detailed...

The poems in Sky Country have resonated with readers of all backgrounds. Drawing on both the real and imagined experiences of her own family, Christine Kitano fills a gap in America's history by giving a voice to immigrant women whose stories have been forgotten by time.

Library Journal recently published a refreshingly candid Q&A with BOA poet Devin Becker, author of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize-winning collection Shame | Shame. The piece touches on a bit of everything, from inspiration to the MFA experience, to the nitty-gritty details of publishing a book. When asked what inspired his debut collection, which humorously focuses on the everyday sort of shame born of small, socially clumsy moments in life, Becker says, "A lot of the things are mundane. Me and my coworkers sitting outside of a building having coffee, or my wife and I at a smoothie joint in a nearby...

The Santa Barbara Independent recently published a compelling interview with David Starkey and Antidote for Night author Marsha de la O, exploring the new collection's noir tendencies, de la O's hypnotizing reading style, and her process of going from elementary school teacher to full-time poetry writer. "Antidote for Night is so rich with imagery and characters and incident. It’s a beautiful book, but it’s also very dark," says Starkey. De la O contrasts topics on themes of darkness and her seer-like reading voice with light, congenial, and insightful humor--even imagining her book being read by Philip Marlowe in a Raymond...