BOA Blog

BOA is excited. Want to know why? The 2012 Annual Conference & Bookfair for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is coming up soon! And once again, BOA will be making its appearance. Presenters, publishing presses, authors, readers, and other literary connoisseurs will gather together from Wednesday, February 29 - Saturday, March 3, in Chicago. A weekend full of events and activities is what's in-store, including writing workshops, lectures, poetry readings, book signings, and more. (Rhyme not intended). A couple of events to take special note of: - On Thursday, March 1 (9 - 10:15 a.m.), BOA will present "Ten Years of the...

“Swan, As the Light Was Changing,” a poem by BOA poet Aracelis Girmay, is “Poem of the Week,” according to the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre. The poem was recently published by BOA in Girmay’s latest book, Kingdom Animalia, which won the 2011 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award. The poems in the book are considered to be “elegiac,” embracing and celebrating the dead along with the living. Girmay sees everything as “animal” in nature, and her poems give credit to all that is “difficult and beautiful about our time on earth.” The Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre was established by the University’s English...

  In the review on Bookin’ with Sunny, Joanne Mallari honors Lucille Clifton’s poems in Mercy, a  BOA publication, and highlights Clifton’s ability to captivate the reader with only twenty lines. Clifton’s work is influential and examines gender, race, and family ties. Mallari emphasizes how Clifton’s verse is not only powerful on the page but allows readers to engage with the voices of Mercy. Mallari states, “Each reader will enter the collection bringing something different, and exit carrying a message that is uniquely theirs. In this mutual relationship between reader and poem, one may just discover that shared memory is...

Remnants of Another Age, a translated book of poems by Macedonian writer Nikola Madzirov, recently recieved keen praise from Mike Walker of Tottenville Review. A difficult language to access - let alone translate for publication - Madzirov's Macedonian tongue is considered a "rare treat" in literature, and Walker recognizes the risks taken in (as well as the dire necessity for) publishing such a work. Walker clearly has a profound connection to the book and an adept understanding of the poems within it. He comments on the advantage of Madzirov's age - being that he is wonderfully balanced between the past struggles of Communist rule and the difficult time of transition "from Soviet...

  Travis Smith's review of Ennui Prophet, a BOA publication, in The Carolina Quarterly emphasizes Kennedy's dark humor and eye for the surreal image, which make his poems enjoyable to read. Smith also connects Kennedy to Baudelaire, making several references throughout the review. The review states, "Kennedy has clearly studied up on his Spleen. Like Baudelaire, Kennedy's depressed speakers often find themselves yearning for other realities, to see the world with a renewed sense of enchantment." Christopher Kennedy is currently the Director of the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at Syracuse University. He has published various collections of poetry. His writing has...