BOA Blog

BOA poet Adrie Kusserow (Refuge, 2013) will join Yusef Komunyakaa, Bruce Weigl and Brian Turner this Friday, October 4, for a reading dedicated to refugee youth in South Sudan. Hosted by New York University's creative writing department, "Poets on War" will benefit refugee girls' education. All proceeds from the evening will go to Africa Education and Leadership Initiative (ELI), an organization which "builds gender equity, improved economic conditions, peaceful development, and strengthened leadership capacity in South Sudan by advancing women’s education through academic sponsorships, partnerships, enrollment-retention programs, and life-skills development." Kusserow will read from her new collection Refuge, a book of ethnographic poetry which probes...

Jim Daniels' new collection Birth Marks is honored as a 'September Exemplar' by the Washington Independent Review of Books. In her monthly column "Exemplars: Poetry Reviews," reviewer Grace Cavalieri compares Daniels to an athlete, for poetry that is "graceful, balanced and FAST. He writes till he gets to the finish line—the winner. His dominion is the grit of 'the city'—Detroit, Pittsburgh... He's a wellspring for all things during the steely 1970s, and folds that into the steely present day." The review makes it clear that Daniels' 14th poetry collection does not fall short: "Jim Daniels inspires us, his consumers, to...

A recent Publishers Weekly review is calling Michael Teig's new book There's a Box in the Garage You Can Beat with a Stick (BOA, 2013) a "mix of oddball phraseology and quiet pathos" which "should charm many readers and confuse some others..." "...in his image-rich free verse, the boundaries between cause and effect, the lines separating people, animals, vegetables, and manufactured products nearly disappear, creating a space part pastoral, part postmodern, and close to the poet’s peers and models... from Tomasz Salamun to Dara Wier." Commenting on the poet's distinctive style, the review says, "Teig... can pass from exhilaration to...

Reading Tickets Still Available! If you are in Rochester this Sunday, you won't want to miss BOA's 16th Annual Dine & Rhyme featuring a reading by nationally acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee! Li-Young will be accompanied on Sitar by the wonderful David Whetstone. There are a limited number of reading tickets still available, so get yours today! Call Melissa Hall at 585-546-3410 ext 11 or e-mail her at [email protected]. Reading tickets are $20 in advance, and $25 at the door.

The Academy of American Poets continues to praise Jillian Weise's The Book of Goodbyes, after announcing her win of the 2013 James Laughlin Award last week. Brenda Shaughnessy, previous Laughlin Award winner, and one of the judges for this year's award, speaks highly of Weise's second book of poetry: "Jillian Weise's crackling second collection is called The Book of Goodbyes—that's 'Goodbyes' plural. For it turns out there are so very many ways to say it. This is no ordinary see ya later/maybe next life, no firm and clear Dear John letter, though epistolary laments and last words pierce the reader as...