BOA Blog

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 Four BOA authors - Kazim Ali, Matthew Shenoda, Barbara Jane Reyes, and Alan Michael Parker - appear in the Poetry Society of America's project in which they ask the provocative question, "What's American About American Poetry?" Here's how the PSA describes the project on their website: "In November 1999, the PSA (in collaboration with Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky and the New School Writing Department) presented the festival 'What's American About American Poetry.'  In preparation for the festival, a survey with general questions about the current state of poetry in America was mailed to  poets across the country, representing a diverse...

Don't forget to sign up for this Saturday's inaugural event of our new series Writing Exercises! The first installment of an intellectually enriching series of creative writing workshops, Writing Exercises will offer participants the opportunity to work closely with two nationally recognized authors and to learn new techniques to enhance and inspire their own poetry and fiction. We are kicking off the series with two powerhouses of poetry and prose, and seasoned writing instructors to boot:  Isabella Gardner Award-winning BOA author and Syracuse University professor Christopher Kennedy and Gary Lutz, author of Stories in the Worst Way and a current...

We’re glad to see that so many people have enjoyed and re-posted BOA’s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize coordinator Albert Abonado’s interview of Sean Thomas Dougherty! Here is Albert’s next installment – an interview with BOA poet Barbara Jane Reyes about her new book Diwata. Barbara’s last book, Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish Press, 2005) won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Diwata was published this month by BOA and has garnered such comments as, “Diwata is a book that would have raised the hairs on the nape of Emily Dickinson’s head” (Nick Carbo), and, “Reyes...

Wyn Cooper recently published his fourth book of poetry, Chaos Is the New Calm.  In the past, Cooper's work has been greeted with warm admiration; in addition to his previous books, The Country of Here Below, The Way Back, and Postcards from the Interior, his poems, stories, essays, and reviews appearing in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Slate, and more than 75 other magazines.  This newest addition seems no exception, gaining high praise from Timothy Mayo in Verse Wisconsin.  “One can read the poems in Wyn Cooper’s new book Chaos is the New Calm as declarations of independence from an...