BOA Blog

We had a great response to the Ko Un brush paintings we posted here last week, so here's another goodie from our translation files. Whenver possible, our translations include a handwritten poem by the author which we scan and print in the books. Today's handwritten poem is by Turkish poet Ece Temelkuran from her collection Book of the Edge. In addition to being a world-class poet, Temelkuran is an award-winning journalist for one of Turkey's most popular newspapers. You can read all about her at her website: Ece Temelkuran. [caption id="attachment_1008" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="Ece Temelkuran. BOA poet."][/caption] Book of the Edge was translated by a...

In celebration of the release of their new record, Eight Belles, the band Jessie Murphy in the Woods did something truly, impressively unusual: they interviewed a poet. More specifically, BOA's own Keetje Kuipers. Why, you ask, would a band do something like that? Good question. Here's what they say: "We – Jessie Murphy In The Woods – have just completed the great adventure of releasing our first record, Eight Belles. We’ve put it out, we’ve played shows in homage to it, we’ve been interviewed about it, and we’ve traveled in support of it. Now it’s time for something new. It’s...

The Write Question is an NPR show that, "explores the world of writing and publishing in the Western United States." Poulin Prize-winning poet Keetje Kuipers appears on the show today to talk about (and read from) her book, Beautiful in the Mouth, and the writing life. Listen to the show here: [Keetje Kuipers on the Writing Life] Here's the program's introduction to the feature: Keetje Kuipers has a unique way of creating poetry: she walks and puts words to the rhythms of her strides. Once in a while, if a poem gets too long, she'll grab an advertisement out of someone's mailbox and...

The thrust of Wallace Stevens' poem "Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself" is often repeated as the hard nugget of a quote from William Carlos Williams' poem "A Sort of a Song": "No ideas but in things." If ever a poet's method could be distilled into five words, it is this.  In the newest BOA translation, The Book of Things, (translated from the Slovenian and with an Introduction by Brian Henry), Aleš Šteger simultaneously adopts and discards this poetic advice. Each poem in the book is built around a single, simple noun (or "thing"). For example: Egg, Knots, Stone, Grater, Chocolate, Bread,...

We got great feedback on yesterday's post of Ko Un paintings from Flowers of a Moment (BOA, 2006) translated by Brother Anthony of Taizè , Gary Gach, and Young-moo Kim. So we decided to share some more riches today! [caption id="attachment_990" align="aligncenter" width="238" caption="Ko Un #7"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_991" align="aligncenter" width="232" caption="Ko Un #8"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_992" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Ko Un #9"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_993" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Ko Un #10"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_994" align="aligncenter" width="228" caption="Ko Un #11"][/caption]