BOA Blog

Jackpot UK recently reviewed The Education of a Poker Player by New York Times-bestselling author James McManus, calling it a "thoroughly refreshing read" and a "coming of age snapshot" for protagonist Vincent Killeen. Reviewer Sam Marsden notes how the book nods to the original poker classic by Herbert O. Yardley, which was - in its time - "a groundbreaking instruction manual for the burgeoning poker world on how they could win at the game . . . it is clearly a significant text in James McManus’ Education because these stories, molded into a novella, revolve around the pivotal moment when the...

MOCA Cleveland photo by Deidre McPherson BOA poet Sean Thomas Dougherty recently participated in a group performance, titled Rhythm and Resistance, in celebration of the power of the written and spoken word at the prestigious MOCA Cleveland (Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland). The reading was presented as part of the Mimeo Revolution: Artist Book + Zine Fair in connection with the summer exhibition How to Remain Human (on view through September 5). This 3-day event was inspired by poet and publisher d.a. levy and renowned comix creator and graphic novelist Derf Backderf, key figures in the exhibition. The spirit of levy's work (rebellious, ardent, and resolutely...

https://youtu.be/341KP2T4exY For tickets to this year's highly-anticipated Dine & Rhyme, contact Melissa Hall via telephone: 585.546.3410 ext. 11 or email: hall@boaeditions.org.

San Francisco Chronicle's Stephen Burt praises the depth of characterization in Nickole Brown's Fanny Says in his new poetry spotlight. Calling Fanny "a character in every sense of the word," Burt praises Brown's collection, which includes "plenty of Fanny’s speech, Fanny’s recipes, Fanny’s monologues about how to be a lady," all of which reveal "Fanny’s notions of dignity, along with the limits of her social world." "The prose poems, spoken entirely by Fanny, suggest oral histories like Studs Terkel’s, if Terkel were rewritten by Loretta Lynn and Lucille Ball. Brown’s verse — which makes up most of the volume — is...

In a glowing new review, NewPages calls G.C. Waldrep's Testament "ambitious and athletic, ever-climbing toward a breakthrough." "We see right away what sort of virtuosity—one hundred and thirty pages of it—lies before us: the precision of image, the sonority of language, the diversity of tone and approach. And good god that lexicon." Reviewer Ryo Yamaguchi says: "...this is, to me, pure Waldrep, a distillate of his finest maneuvers, and in many ways the most ambitious of his meditational efforts. To that end, this is a rangy poem, shifting and cycling back on itself, plumbing and measuring and reassessing in a long...