BOA Blog

Publishers Weekly recently gave This New & Poisonous Air a star review, calling Adam McOmber's style "sinuous" and "antiquated."  The reviewer states, "Writing with a sure hand and an impressive imagination, McOmber depicts that seamless scrim between the real and imagined." As a part of BOA's American Readers Series, This New and Poisonous Air is set to be released this summer. Read the full review along with others here [caption id="attachment_1017" align="alignnone" width="196" caption="This New & Poisonous Air. Stories by Adam McOmber."][/caption]

This week, to celebrate National Poetry Month, G.C. Waldrep and John Gallaher will be releasing one post a day discussing their collaborative effort in Your Father on the Train of Ghosts.  Just like their poetry collection came to life through an email exchange, so does this discussion, which artfully discusses the question, "Can reading and writing be public/collective/collaborative acts?"  The "fantasy" of originality and the "Romantic I" is also contended, after which Gallaher leaves us with the statement that "all writing is collaborative.  One collaborates with the world. The whole article can be read here.

Recently, Coal Hill Review contributor John Samuel Tieman offered a thoughtful, philosophical response to Sean Thomas Dougherty's Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line. Tieman describes Dougherty as "a landscape artist...like Studs Terkel walking along Division Street in Chicago, describing immigrants and drug addicts, the denizens and detritus of urban America." He also lauds Dougherty's ability to fluxuate between "epistolary description" and "prose riffs" seamlessly. Tieman engages Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line in a deeply personal and philosophical inquiry, even in the space of such a small review. As a result, the tone is curious and reverent, and...

Barbara Jane Reyes's Diwata continues to attract attention for poems whose lines are "lyrical and mystical in their rhythm."  In Galatea Resurrects, G. Justin Hulog's perceptive review explores the mythological concerns of Diwata, placing into context the cultural and historical implications of Barbara's poems: "In her poetic musings, we see the concerns of the Filipino diaspora brought to life: the desire to reclaim our pre-colonial past, the lament of colonialism, the search for an “authentic” voice, the terror of rape and war, the universal struggle to translate ourselves and, perhaps most importantly, our capacity to dream." G. Justin Hulong boldly...

Your Father on the Train of Ghosts was recently reviewed by Joshua Diamond of the Sycamore Review.  Diamond says that John Gallaher and G.C. Waldrep are ahead of the curve in a year of American poetry he names, "The Year of the Ghost."  He comments on the collection's ability to "navigate" readers to a familiar place by referencing automated towns, parental figures, and even a Spencer Tracy film. Calling Your Father on the Train of Ghosts "not a typical collaboration," Diamond writes, "It is also not a G.C. Waldrep or a John Gallaher book; rather a hybrid speaker emerges wearing Waldrep's hat and Gallaher's sneakers." Read...