BOA Blog

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 is on the Powell's Books Blog's list of "Favorite Poetry Books of the Past Year and a Half," by reviewer Chris Faatz. "I once had the pleasure of meeting, and hearing read, the prominent African-American poet Lucille Clifton," says Faatz. "It was a high point of my literary life, as I'd admired her work for years... Now her main publisher, BOA Editions, has brought out one of the most beautifully designed books of the season with a table of contents that will floor even the casual reader." Like so many reviews of the...

Bruce Beasley's new collection Theophobia recently made Image Journal's Top Ten of 2012 list, out of more than one hundred books, films, albums, visual art collections, and television shows. "In Bruce Beasley's newest collection, the poet's belief and doubt are deconstructed and then uncertainly rebuilt. In his restless search for (and fear of) God, he combines the ambiguity of postmodernism, the precision of science, and the theology of mysticism into sprawling poems that add surprising twists to our images of divinity..." Calling Beasley "at once an academic and a layman, a parishioner and a theologian," the Image review dubs Beasley's...

In a recent review by The Rumpus, Craig Morgan Teicher's To Keep Love Blurry is praised for its "attention to our formal and confessional roots," as it includes and compares with such "giants" as Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Frost. As Teicher's "sensitive poems explore the 'blurriness' in marriage, parenthood, and personhood," the thorough review notes how the poet "seems driven to avoid the affects of his predecessors." Teicher straddles true confessional poetry with the "constructed voice," which can turn "clumsy, complex emotions into a more attractive, better sounding object," and thus, "encourages thoughtfulness but often falsifies our real...

Please take a few minutes to watch this powerful video, depicting one of the most profound moments in poetry. This is why BOA is here. what the mirror said An adaptation of the poem by Lucille Clifton Directed and Produced by Sydney Howe Adapted and Performed by Prerna Class 11 Prerna School is a free afternoon-only school run by Study Hall Educational Foundation in Lucknow, UP, India. Prerna exclusively serves underprivileged girls from the surrounding slums in the Study Hall neighborhood. Many students work as domestic helpers both before and after attending school and most would not be able to...

Jillian Weise, author of the forthcoming The Book of Goodbyes (BOA, Fall 2013), is already receiving praise for her new poetry collection in an NPR Books 2013 poetry preview: "...make sure to check out The Book of Goodbyes by Jillian Weise, whose debut, The Amputee's Guide to Sex, was that and much more. This second collection is a swirling set of love poems to a beloved as omnipresent as he is illusive." Winner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, The Book of Goodbyes speaks to a certain deranged love that throws into question sex, legality, gender-politics, disability, and the end...