BOA Blog

Hello readers! Today is the official publication of Rail by Kai Carlson-Wee, and Kai sent us a special playlist of songs that inspired his work.  Listen to the playlist on Spotify and read Kai's liner notes below. Enjoy! A note from Kai Carlson-Wee: Most of the poems in RAIL were started while I was traveling. They typically began as scraps of sound, lyrics I jotted down, images, impressions, which I then cobbled together later on. Obviously the poems I was reading would fuel the sound, but just as often the music I was listening to would influence the writing. The way I listen to music is sort...

Poets & Writers recently featured Marsha de la O in its "Writers Recommend" section, an online exclusive on all things inspiring to writers in their creative process. Here's what de la O, author of the new Isabella Gardner Poetry Award-winning Antidote for Night, had to say: “Begin with bleakness. Bring yourself to the bare room. Voices will assail you, reminding you how many times you’ve been hit on the head, hard, reminding you of the bad genes, the narrow valley in Bohemia where your ancestors left their lives as factory hands, as milk maids, with their natural and legitimate children in...