BOA Blog

In Nick Courtright’s review of the BOA publication, Your Father on the Train of Ghosts written by G.C. Waldrep and John Gallaher, in “Gently Read Literature” Courtright stresses that the writers are a perfect match for each other. He believes the writer can seek proof of Waldrep’s effortless execution or Gallaher’s effusive delightful tendencies, yet there is no need to attach a name to a single poem. Courtright states that the poets continually surprise the reader and the subversion of the narrative is insistently dream-like in its quality and unlike “narrative poems” are evasive and dodgy. “The collection acts as...

This year, to better celebrate Valentine's day, our very own Peter Conners read poems from BOA authors Li-Young Lee and Wendy Mnookin at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Valentine's Day performances this past week! Each performance included music from Richard Strauss' romantic Der Rosenkavalier, alongside the delicate Rose Absolute by Japanese-born Karen Tanaka and Stefan Jackiw returned to play Bruch's ebullient Scottish Fantasy. The selected poems this year were From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee and How Men, How Women by Wendy Mnookin and we're happy to share them with you today to read and enjoy! From Blossoms By Li-Young Lee From the...

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...