BOA Blog

Rain Taxi Review of Books is calling Bruce Beasley's Theophobia "inventive," an "important contemporary addition to poetic wrestling with the religious," compared with the works of Augustine. Among other praises, reviewer Spencer Dew marvels at the creative manner by which Beasley addresses the divine while simultaneously speaking to such topics and objects as Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite of the feline digestive tract, or a TiVo Customer Service telephone line. How does he do it? "[Beasley] manages to keep the reader connected by stitching such abstract and conceptual musings to the recognizable and known. Voicemail messages warning of call volume, popups...

"Folks, get into Geffrey Davis," says Muzzle magazine (online) of the most recent winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Davis was chosen for Muzzle's "30 Under 30" for his poem "What I Mean When I Say Elijah-Man," from his Poulin Prize-winning manuscript Revising the Storm. While the word "masculine" has long been associated with that which is "muscular, rigid, strong, recluse, stubborn, and fisted," Muzzle speaks on the "softness" of masculinity, which is represented in Davis’ poetry: "Geffrey Davis’ work takes that off and splits it open, shows us the soft cotton that makes the word muscular, the tender,...

Douglas Watson’s short story “The Messenger Who Did Not Become a Hero” was recently published in One Story, following an insightful Q&A with the author that the literary magazine published last month. The story is part of Watson's new debut fiction collection The Era of Not Quite, which will be released by BOA in May. One Story prides itself on "thorough editing," and has, admittedly, "never seen a story that could not be improved by editing.” That is, until they encountered Watson's “The Messenger Who Did Not Become a Hero.” "The day after we accepted the story, I sat down...

Bloodaxe Books, releasing Nikola Madzirov’s Remnants of Another Age in the U.K. this year, recently put out a sensational video of Madzirov reading poetry from the collection, in both English and his native Macedonian language. First published by BOA in 2011, Li-Young Lee has said that Madzirov's collection “move[s] mysteriously by means of a profound inner concentration, giving expression to the deepest laws of the mind” and that its “linguistic ‘making’ is informed by and vivid evidence of a serious self-making, soul-making, and heart-making.” Take a few minutes to watch the beautiful video below, and hear Madzirov read eight of...

Poet Christopher Kennedy, reading at SUNY Brockport; Photo by Peter Conners BOA poet and translator Christopher Kennedy read last night (April 17, 2013) at SUNY Brockport, an event which was hosted by the college's The Writer's Forum, recognized as one of the outstanding reading series in the country. Kennedy read from his three BOA titles: Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death (2007); Ennui Prophet (2011); and his new Pakistani translation Light and Heavy Things: Selected Poems by Zeeshan Sahil (2013). The event was a success, and Kennedy did a great job. Christopher Kennedy's poetry is funny, deadpan, self-effacing...