BOA Blog

Anne Germanacos has lived between Greece and San Francisco for thirty years, writing singular and tragic fast-paced stories that pack a punch.  We sat down with Anne to get her take on writing, audience, and what we can look forward to from her in the future. [caption id="attachment_957" align="aligncenter" width="227" caption="Anne Germanacos. BOA fiction author."][/caption] BOA:  You've lived in two countries, cultures, and languages during your adult life.  How has this influenced your writing? ANNE:  I don’t know what I would have been without the experience of Greece and the United States, both, as well as Greek and English, cities, islands,...

There's too much news to focus on just one thing, so here's a tasty BOA news sampler to fill your tummy until Monday... Keetje Kuipers' Beautiful in the Mouth made the Poetry Foundation's Contemporary Poetry Best Sellers List for the week of Sept. 5-12! Along with making the list, Harriet (the blog of the Poetry Foundation) had this to say about it: "Beautiful in the Mouth by Keetje Kuipers makes its first appearance on the contemporary best seller list this week at number 7. That is a remarkable debut for a first book by a young poet—up there in the top ten...

[caption id="attachment_1038" align="aligncenter" width="241" caption="Barbara Jane Reyes. BOA Poet. Photo by Peter Dressel."][/caption] Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors, is currently featuring Rigoberto González's interview with Barbara Jane Reyes about her new collection, Diwata (BOA, 2010). "You are right, in that Diwata does not primarily aim to critique colonialism or erase a colonial history, which is impossible to do. Rather, it foregrounds women who have resisted, survived, endured colonial invasion and dislocation. They have done so by being creative, by (metaphorically) shapeshifting, by passing down wisdom through the generations (through story, song, dance,...

[caption id="attachment_1036" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Matthew Shenoda. BOA Poet. "][/caption] New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg concluded his 9/11 address with some lines of poetry that may sound familiar. That's because they were quoted from the 2009 BOA title, Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone by Matthew Shenoda! The quotes are from Matthew's poem "Donkey Carts and Desolation": Ingenuity is the notion of building/ On a foundation made from loss You can watch the speech here (the quote takes place at 9 minutes 15 seconds into the video): http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7662057 We applaud Mayor Bloomberg's choice in using poetry to communicate his challenging message and congratulate Matthew Shenoda...

In honor of the 10th Annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, we are offering a 15% discount on all past contest winning books! For all you potential future Poulin contest winners, this is your chance to get familiar with work by your peers. For poetry lovers in general, this is  great chance to read some of most dynamic poetry debuts of the past 10 years. Check out the books here [Poulin Contest Winners]  Happy reading... and Good Luck!