BOA Blog

G.C. Waldrep and John Gallaher received praise for their collection of poetry, Your Father on the Train of Ghosts.  Boston Review notes that this poetry calls in a unique perspective of collective voice between the two authors.  The poetry is seamlessly assembled into poems with "real strength." Waldrep and Gallaher's poetry is a pleasing "example of contemporary work" that seeks to "express the exhaustion of excess."  Not one poem is wasted in contributing to the collection.  Each poem dives into the communion of speakers and souls as they share awareness and become a whole new creative voice together. Together, Waldrep and...

Aleš Šteger's poem "Egg," from his collection of translated poetry The Book of Things, was chosen to feature as today's Poem of the Day by the American Academy of Poets. Translated by Brian Henry, Šteger's poetry often focuses on simple, everyday objects, but in his poetry these normal items become strange, new, and utterly other. Today's "Egg" is written in this tradition, juxtaposing the tranquility of breakfast with the threatening images of the eye, the gaze, and questions no one wants to answer before coffee. Egg When you kill it at the edge of the pan, you don't notice That...

Cecilia Woloch's poem "My Mother's Pillow," from her book Late, was recently selected as the weekly poem in American Life in Poetry, a "project for newspapers" run by 2004-2006 US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. "I don't often mention literary forms," Kooser writes in his brief introduction to Woloch's work, "but of this lovely poem... I want to suggest that the form, a villanelle, which uses a pattern of repetition, adds to the enchantment I feel in reading it. it has a kind of layering, like memory itself." Read "My Mother's Pillow" on American Life in Poetry here. Like what you...

Craig Morgan Teicher's Cradle Book, which was published in 2010 as part of BOA's American Readers Series, has recently been selected as an Editor's Favorites pick for Summer 2011 by Cerise Press. In Teicher's debut collection of short stories, "[m]ortality permeates... With piercing brevity, he features villagers and personified animals who endure an austere existence... Teicher imbues portraits of melancholy with truth-telling that elucidate the brutal yet wondrous mysteries between 'silence and sound,'" writes Editor Karen Rigby. You can purchase Cradle Book here. Spot Cradle Book at Cerise Press here.

If you're lucky enough to be near Marfa, Texas this Friday, make sure and tune in to NPR's KRTS 93.5 FM at 10am CST (that's 11am EST, for us here on the East Coast) to hear BOA translator Deniz Perin give an interview! Don't live in Texas? You can still listen online here on Marfa Public Radio's website by clicking the "Listen Now" button at the top of the page. Still finding an excuse not to listen? We've got you covered; Perin's interview will play again at 6:30pm CST, or 7:30pm EST here near the pond. Perin, who lives in...