BOA Blog

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...

Rochester, N.Y. — Bruce Weigl has been awarded the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award for his new collection, On the Shores of Welcome Home. His book will be published by BOA Editions in fall 2019 within the American Poets Continuum Series. The Isabella Gardner Award carries an honorarium of $1,000 and is given biennially to a poet with a new book of exceptional merit. BOA Publisher Peter Conners made the final selection for this award. The most recent winners of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award are Christian Barter for Bye-Bye Land, Marsha de la O for Antidote for Night, Jillian Weise...

We are pleased to announce that Matt Morton of Dallas, TX is the winner of the 18th annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His winning manuscript, Improvisation without Accompaniment, was selected by esteemed poet Patricia Smith from an original pool of more than 740 submissions. Improvisation without Accompaniment will be published by BOA Editions in April 2020 as part of the A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series with a foreword by Patricia Smith. Morton will also receive a $1,000 honorarium. In addition to the winning manuscript, judge Patricia Smith also selected a finalist and two semi-finalists for the prize:...

Rochester, N.Y. — BOA Editions is proud to announce that Cenzontle by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo has won the 2018 Golden Poppy Book Award for Poetry. The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) announced the winners of the 2018 Golden Poppy Awards at an awards ceremony on Sunday, March 24, 2019. The NCIBA members praised Castillo’s poems in Cenzontle as “Unexpectedly deep for poems that on the surface look spacious and airy.” Cenzontle is Castillo’s debut poetry collection. The collection presents a nuanced narrative of life before, during, and after crossing the US/Mexico border through poems that explore the emotional fallout of immigration, the anxieties of living in a queer brown...

Hello readers! Every week, BOA's staff and interns share a special poem from our over 300 collections of poetry. This week's poem is from Birth Marks by Jim Daniels. Birth Marks She was stymied by pizza, but notby ice cream. She ordered vanillafor its sound. She reigned as Queenof the Isle of You Decide.He had the patience of a splinterworking its way to the surfaceand the business senseof a herd of cattle.She used her checkbookto prop up every minor purchase.He used cash for the benefitof its traceless disappearance.In short, he was a bad magicianand she the nervous assistant,a match manufactured in a damp...