BOA Blog

Hello readers! Join our team of interns as they explore over 40 years of our publication history and share their passion for some of their favorite titles from BOA Editions. In today's post, Nia T. contemplates how Janice N. Harrington makes visible how nursing home residents and their caretakers experience the end of life. Confronting Mortality Through Poetry: Janice N. Harrington’s The Hands of Strangers Hi everyone! I’m Nia, one of BOA’s summer interns this year. I’m currently on a gap year, learning more about the publishing world and exploring more poetry, as I plan to transfer to Howard University to follow in the footsteps...

Rochester, N.Y. — BOA Editions is pleased to announce that internationally beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye will be the guest of honor at this year’s Dine & Rhyme fundraiser gala on Friday, October 4, 2019, at the Rochester Academy of Medicine. Nye is the author of The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019) and was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in May 2019. Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Her father was...

BOA Editions is pleased to announce that it has received a $10,000 grant from the Amazon Literary Partnership Poetry Fund and the Academy of American Poets. This grant will support the publication of a new collection of poetry from BOA Editions by a woman of color in spring 2020. “We are thrilled and heartened to receive this new support from the Amazon Literary Partnership Program and The Academy of American Poets,” said Peter Conners, Publisher of BOA Editions. “For 43 years, BOA has been committed to publishing poetry that will have a lasting cultural impact. This grant bolsters that mission...

Dear readers, this weekend, we invite you to celebrate Mother's Day with a special poem from Li-Young Lee's Rose. Read the poem below and enjoy a video of the author discussing his work for the Poetry Breaks series from the WGBH New Television Workshops. I Ask My Mother to Sing She begins, and my grandmother joins her.Mother and daughter sing like young girls.If my father were alive, he would playhis accordion and sway like a boat. I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watchthe rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickersrunning...

BOA is excited to share the news that Naomi Shihab Nye has been named the new Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. The title recognizes and celebrates a living writer for their devotion to writing exceptional poetry for young readers. The Poetry Foundation announced the laureateship on their website this morning along with their announcements for the winners of the 2019 Pegasus Awards and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. “As part of our mission, and core to Poetry magazine’s 106-year history, we celebrate the best poetry, and with these awards we honor some of the writers who bring it into the world...