BOA Blog

Hello readers! Every week, BOA's staff and interns share a special poem from our over 300 collections of poetry. This week's poem is from Holy Moly Carry Me by Erika Meitner, which won the 2018 National Jewish Book Award for Poetry last week. Austerity Go off the fiscal cliff with me, baby. I’m ready.We can hold hands while we blow throughWest Virginia quickly, since we’re halfway down77 past Charleston already, and I’m cranked onCherry Coke from Burger King, feet on the dash,wondering aloud if they’ll cart sad Dick Clark outagain for TV New Year’s Eve while the car radioplays Blue Öyster Cult (I’m...

Hello readers! Every week, BOA's staff and interns share a special poem from our over 300 collections of poetry. This week's poem is from A. Poulin, Jr. Selected Poems. The Angels of Eternal Life If they remain alone, they never die. Their unmatched molecules are perfect, charged with energy distilled of entropy. Forever radiant with that one moment when they were utterly happy and fulfilled light-years before their birth, their eyes are moons staring at the sun, all day, all night. But they have to know each other. So they walk the streets, searching empty eyes of other beautiful strangers, desperate for one...

Dear readers, as the year draws to a close, the BOA staff would like to say thank you to everyone who made 2018 memorable. Thank you to our authors, interns, designers, IT team, board members, national advisory committee, sponsors, and donors for your support this year.  We'd also like to say a special thank you to the City of Rochester, Monroe County, the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ames-Amzalak Charitable Trust, the Gouvernet Arts Fund, the Green Hill Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the LGBT Fund for Greater Rochester, the Literary Presenters Technical Assistance Program /...

Dear readers, the BOA Blog will be quiet for the next two weeks as our staff enjoys some quality time with their loved ones. Next week will mark the final BOA Poem of the Week for 2018, but in the meantime, we wish to share one of our favorite poems from BOA's over 300 collections of poetry. This week's poem of the week is from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser. holy night joseph, i afraid of stars their brilliant seeing. so many eyes. such light. joseph, i cannot still these limbs, i...

Hello readers! Every week, BOA's staff and interns share one of our favorite poems from our over 300 collections of poetry. This week's poem is from The Moon Makes Its Own Plea by Wendy Mnookin. The Shortest Day of the Year Our doors blocked by a blizzardthe two of us climbed from a windowinto a world made new—mailboxes buried, signs disappeared.we walked on the tops of bushes,dug until we found our car.And dug some more.We cleared the hood,unburdened the windshield.tunneled all the way to the tires.Then what?The roads were closed,there was nowhere to go.Sweating inside our layers,we let ourselves fallback into drift.We had no...