BOA Blog

BOA translation The Oasis of Now is featured on the Little Star Weekly blog! The Iranian translation carries poems from the late Sohrab Sepehri, translated from the Persian by Kazim Ali and Mohammad Jafar Mahallati. Sepehri lived his life as a poet and a painter. The review notes: "In the mid-sixties he resigned a government position and traveled extensively in China, Japan, and India, developing a deep interest in Buddhism and Hindu philosophy, and devoting himself thereafter  to painting and poetry. This encounter with eastern meditative traditions converged in his work with an affinity for mystical Sufism." "He followed Nima Youshij, Ahmad Shamlou,...

According to Publishers Weekly, Geffrey Davis' debut collection Revising the Storm is "an account of selfhood, origin, and meaning in the face of an absent father and broken relationships." His collection, stocked full of memories, is a search for meaning and repair. "Throughout its three sections, the engine powering the collection runs on retrospection and introspection, and a fierce questioner, challenging the accuracy of the observations, is always at the wheel." Writing about such topics as childhood, a drug-addicted father, familial love, and self reflection, Davis speaks on a personal level. "Acutely aware of myriad meanings to each assertion and...

Recently, poet Michael Dennis featured new BOA translation The World Shared on his blog as the book of the day. "Reading Dariusz Sosnicki is a bit like Vladimir Mayakovsky running into Wislawa Szymborska on a train, they sit down with the patient Raymond Carver and start to hack out poems," he writes. "These melancholy poems read a little like fables, a little like common knowledge." The World Shared, a bilingual Polish-English collection by Dariusz Sosnicki, translated by Piotr Florczyk and Boris Dralyuk, carries a "thoroughly modern voice," but also an "echo of old Europe singing background serenades." At times, the...

Lee Upton's new fiction collection The Tao of Humiliation is making big waves, with one month still to go until its official publication date. Having received The Kirkus Star ("awarded to books of exceptional merit") and new reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, the BOA Short Fiction Prize winner is a hit. According to Kirkus, these are "masterful stories by a writer of great lyrical gifts." The review continues, "Upton specializes in ending her stories with epiphanies that can be searing in their poignancy. These 17 tales explore personal and familial relationships with both pathos and humor—and all are...

Happy National Poetry Month! To celebrate this gorgeous month of verse, we're offering FREE SHIPPING on any BOA Bookstore order through April 30! Give the gift of poetry this month, with the goal to put more poetry into more hands. Simply use promo code BOAPOETRY in the discount box at checkout to save! There are lots of fun things going on this month. Here are a few you don't want to miss: Writer's Digest 2014 April Poem-A-Day (PAD) Challenge: Each day in April, Writer's Digest will provide a poetry prompt on its website, from which you can write a daily poem. Submit each...