BOA Blog

In a special two-part episode for the Commonplace Podcast, host Rachel Zucker speaks with BOA poet Erika Meitner (Copia, 2014) about "her circuitous route to becoming a poet, her early influences (especially the work of Mark Doty), her conversational diction and increasingly straight-forward poetics, [and] her experience of reporting in verse while in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention."According to Commonplace, Meitner "explains that much of her work arises from a commitment to writing accurately and respectfully about the small town in which she lives, and the challenges of writing as an engaged member of her community while being an...

Aracelis Girmay is the winner of Poetry magazine's 2016 Bess Hokin Prize for three poems from her new book, the black maria: "to the sea," "The Black Maria," and "luam/asa-luam."The award was established in 1948 through the generosity of Poetry’s late friend and guarantor Mrs. David Hokin, and carries a $1,000 prize. Recent winners of the prize include Terrance Hayes, Claudia Rankine, and Laura Kasischke.Taking its name from the moon’s dark plains, misidentified as seas by early astronomers, the black maria investigates African diasporic histories, the consequences of racism within American culture, and the question of human identity. Central to this project...

Aracelis Girmay's the black maria shines in the spotlight once again with another remarkable review, this time from reviewer Sam Huber of Feministing.The review notes the "inexhaustible wonder of language" and Girmay's "brilliant inversion of the overly familiar aspiration to write verse that outlives its author." Huber describes how Girmay has written her speakers to pass words back and forth, trading them like "special things," and notes that "language is a tent they pitch and huddle under, respecting the integrity of the words each brings even while exchanging them freely."According to the review, "the black maria consists of two ambitious...

 Photo Courtesy of On Being with Krista TippettNaomi Shihab Nye is the new guest on the latest episode of On Being with Krista Tippett.During the episode, which is currently airing on 400+ public radio stations around the country, Nye shares about her experiences growing up in Ferguson, Missouri, and on the road between Ramallah and Jerusalem. "Her father was a refugee Palestinian journalist, and through her poetry, she carries forward his hopeful passion, his insistence, that language must be a way out of cycles of animosity."According to On Being, "Naomi is wise and compelling, bringing poetry down to earth in...

A new Booklist review calls Stephen Dobyns's forthcoming The Day's Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech a collection of "courageous observations about the way one endures as he considers big questions about death—of his love, his friends, and himself. [Dobyns] never hides from the tragic and the honest."Reviewer Danielle Susi notes how the collection's first poem, "Stories," sets the stage for the rest of the book. "From the very beginning of the book, the reader understands that this poem, and so many others that follow, will focus on recognizing the truth of mortality."The second section of the...