BOA Blog

Poet Michael Dennis likens Sean Thomas Dougherty's new and selected, All You Ask for Is Longing, to "a very eloquent Charles Bukowski with some top notch Raymond Carver type editing." In his poetry blog, Dennis highlights the eclectic mix of Dougherty's collection: "These poems are Andrew Wyeth precise and Richard Pryor sharp. There is so much to admire in this collection. Dougherty mixes it up with prose poems, list poems, it doesn't matter—at this level of excellence it is all first rate." Showcasing such poems as "At Mike's Pub and Grub," "Dear L, The Moon is White and Blue as...

  Great news! Of the 1,300 event proposals submitted for the 2015 AWP conference, BOA's panel "The Poetry of Translation" has been accepted for #AWP15 in Minneapolis! BOA Editions' award-winning Lannan Translations Selection Series presents four translators from four different countries discussing the challenges, revelations, and importance of translating contemporary poetry for U.S. readers. Panelists will discuss their recent translations from Macedonia, Vietnam, Poland, and Spain. Topics will include: selecting poets to translate; autonomy versus collaboration; bridging cultural differences while honoring the original language; and translation as an art form. Along with moderator Peter Conners, panelists will include Bruce Weigl,...

In a new Late Night Library interview by co-founder and director Paul Martone, poet Keetje Kuipers reveals extremely personal aspects of her new book, The Keys to the Jail: "I challenged myself constantly in the poems in this book to write to emotional places that actually shamed me ... I’m always trying to argue something in my poems. I’m never willing to give in to the complacent or passive, especially not when trying to translate some portion of my personal experience into poetry." The Keys to the Jail continues Elizabeth Bishop’s tradition of the art of losing, but delves deeper, asking the...

In the travel blog, "My Black Journey," National Railroad Passenger Corporation AMTRAK named Revising the Storm one of five "sizzling books you must slip into your travel bag this summer." Poet Geffrey Davis discusses his new A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize-winning book on the blog, as well as his favorite books, his start in writing, and his self-titled role as a "literary citizen." According to AMTRAK blogger Shydell James, Revising the Storm "gives voice to the realities of distance, time, space. This work challenges you to reevaluate your relationships to people, events and your personal version of stories as a way...

Image courtesy of www.grantland.com In his featured Grantland essay, BOA author Hugh Martin (The Stick Soldiers, 2013) recalls playing high school basketball with LeBron James, getting dunked on by his then-14-year-old Ohio league rival, and "how the NBA superstar helped get him through the Iraq War." In great detail, Martin recounts the shaping experience of getting dunked on by LeBron: "I ran beside him, waiting to swing my hand at his next bounce, but I struggled to keep pace, moving my feet as quickly as possible next to his long, rhythmic strides. After three dribbles he jumped off one leg and...