BOA Blog

Do you like YouTube videos? Poetry, too? Want to see a video of Craig Morgan Teicher playing with cats? So do we!  Head over to the BOA Editions channel on YouTube for some newly added readings by Naomi Shihab Nye, Sean Thomas Dougherty, and Kazim Ali. No tumbling or botched back-flips, but these recitations will have you flipping over to the BOA Bookstore to read more from these fine poets. Any suggestions? Throw them up on our Facebook page! We'd love to hear from you.

To add to the list of reasons why we love New York City, the MTA has brought back its Poetry in Motion, an initiative to plaster lines of verse across the subway car walls. Alice Quinn, former New Yorker poetry editor and current executive director of the Poetry Society of America, sat down with the Poetry Foundation to discuss the project and its featured poets, including BOA pillar Lucille Clifton! For more information on Poetry in Motion and the Arts in Transit project, check out its page on the MTA website.

Ever wonder what went through an artist's head while you're viewing their work? The insights could be revelatory; they might confirm your hunches or completely turn your impressions for a loop. Either way, getting poets to talk about their craft and how they arrived at the final versions of their poems can be a noble, if not valuable enterprise as we encounter their work or polish off our own. To listen in on a truly compelling conversation about the making of a poem between two poets, check out Fleda Brown's interview on Brian Brodeur's blog How a Poem Happens. In...

Hey, Rochester! In addition to celebrating an early spring this April, it's National Poetry Month! BOA Editions has partnered up with Rochester public radio WXXI for a recurring program, Poetry Moments. These potent jabs of poesy will include selections from BOA authors such as Tony Leuzzi, Barton Sutter, Aracelis Girmay, Lucille Clifton, and will be broadcast daily. For a full schedule of poetic moments, check out WXXI's Poetry Moments page.

  The April 2012 issue of Gently Read Literature features two of BOA's poets, Michael Waters and Carsten Rene Nielsen. Mike Walker reviewed Nielsen's poetry collection, House Inspections, translated by David Keplinger. Walker believes Nielsen has a distinct voice and gives praise to the translation that replicates the tone and feel of the original Danish version. Walker says, "Nielsen creates sketches of place and typical actions of the day as if his words slipped off a journal's page." Gerry LaFemina reviewed Michael Water's poetry collection, Gospel Night. After re-reading Gospel Night, LaFemina says it is like "taking a poetic journey in both...