BOA Blog

Lee Upton's new fiction collection The Tao of Humiliation is making big waves, with one month still to go until its official publication date. Having received The Kirkus Star ("awarded to books of exceptional merit") and new reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, the BOA Short Fiction Prize winner is a hit. According to Kirkus, these are "masterful stories by a writer of great lyrical gifts." The review continues, "Upton specializes in ending her stories with epiphanies that can be searing in their poignancy. These 17 tales explore personal and familial relationships with both pathos and humor—and all are...

Happy National Poetry Month! To celebrate this gorgeous month of verse, we're offering FREE SHIPPING on any BOA Bookstore order through April 30! Give the gift of poetry this month, with the goal to put more poetry into more hands. Simply use promo code BOAPOETRY in the discount box at checkout to save! There are lots of fun things going on this month. Here are a few you don't want to miss: Writer's Digest 2014 April Poem-A-Day (PAD) Challenge: Each day in April, Writer's Digest will provide a poetry prompt on its website, from which you can write a daily poem. Submit each...

Booklist is also paying attention to Geffrey Davis' new collection Revising the Storm, calling it a "wonderfully complex and entertaining debut." Much of Revising the Storm centers on family. "Thematically, Davis hits some strong subjects: missing fathers, marriage and divorce, early years and rebirth, all painful twists of reality and even sentimentality that make families too close for comfort yet often beyond reach ... Davis' poems are sweeping, lyrical glimpses into masculinity, violence, drug use, and history." Instead of escaping them, Davis is able to revise these subjects and experiences into something strikingly beautiful. According to the review, Davis is...

According to a new Booklist review, Lee Upton's The Tao of Humiliation is an "entertaining collection," which will "appeal to fans of a variety of literary authors, such as Grace Paley, Edith Pearlman, and Lewis Nordan." That's high and rightful praise. In this 17-story collection of irony, mourning, humor, and satire, "Upton, award-winning poet and literary critic, shows her mastery of the short form." Abundant with "fascinating characters who confront and confound readers," Upton creates a similarly wide variety of situations -- loss, insight, betrayal, and, of course, humiliation -- with a "lightness of touch." "She draws her unforgettable characters with...

In a recent weekend feature for The Journal, reviewer Sonja James calls Sohrab Sepehri "one of Iran's most widely respected poets from the 20th century." Sepehri's The Oasis of Now is translated from the Persian by Kazim Ali and Mohammad Jafar Mahallati. "As translators, Ali and Mahallati have rendered an exquisite collection that captures not only Sepehri's love of nature but his constant struggle with the theme of the loneliness of the poet making his way through the world." The review notes Sepehri's emphasis on loneliness as "the fate of the poet," an inherent element of the poet's journey. In...