BOA Blog

We asked our Spring 2023 authors to share about a food or drink to enjoy while reading their book, or one that appears often in their new collection from BOA. Mahtem Shiferraw is the author of the poetry collection Nomenclatures of Invisibility, and below, she shares a little back story and a food that pairs well with her poems.  from Mahtem Shiferraw:   When I think of Nomenclatures, the food that comes to mind is "kategna" or, ቃተኛ in Amharic, which is not ordinarily an everyday food. It's mostly made of fresh enjera; at the end of the process of making a batch of enjera, the last one is...

  Rochester, N.Y. — We are thrilled to announce that acclaimed poet Matthew Shenoda will judge the 23rd annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, which will open for submissions on August 1! Matthew Shenoda is a writer, professor, and author and editor of several books. His poems and essays have appeared in a variety of newspapers, journals, radio programs and anthologies. His debut collection of poems, Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press), was named one of 2005's debut books of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine and was winner of a 2006 American Book Award. He is also the author of Seasons of Lotus,...

Rochester, NY—BOA Editions, Ltd. is pleased to announce that Matthew Gellman of Brooklyn, NY is the winner of the 22nd annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His winning manuscript, Beforelight, was selected by celebrated poet and writer Tina Chang from a pool of 800 original submissions. Beforelight will be published by BOA Editions in April 2024 as part of the New Poets of America Series with a foreword by Tina Chang. Gellman will also receive a $1,000 honorarium.  "I am in awe of the talent and vision of this year's poetry submissions. I am honored to select Matt Gellman's Beforelight as the winner of...

Mahtem Shiferraw is the author of Nomenclatures of Invisibility, as well as the author of poetry collections Fuschia,Your Body Is War, and Behind Walls & Glass. Through a personal, historical, and political lens, Shiferraw's Nomenclatures of Invisibility attends to the collective experiences inherited through deeply-rooted ancestry, tracing patterns of movement and migration, sorrow and invisibility, and the resulting complicated notions of home. In the following self-interview with Mahtem Shiferraw, learn more about the author's thoughts around naming, immigration, and making space for our fellow humans! How does one think about nomenclatures? What’s in a name, that is not seen right away?  A name contains a world. A world filled...

Jessica Q. Stark is the author of Buffalo Girl, as well as Savage Pageant (Birds LLC). In these hybrid poems, Stark explores her mother’s fraught immigration to the United States from Vietnam at the end of war through the lens of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. Interspersed throughout are a series of collaged photographs, featuring Stark’s mother’s black-and-white photography from Vietnam beautifully and hauntingly layered over various natural landscapes. In the following interview with Jessica Q. Stark and BOA's new Director of Development & Publicity Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer, learn more about the author's thoughts around working with archival materials, writing hybrid texts, and retelling personal histories through...