This is a virtual-only event streamed on City of Asylum’s virtual platform, City of Asylum @ Home.

Rachel Mennies, author of The Naomi Letters is joined by BOA pressmates Kendra DeColo and Geffrey Davis for a live poetry reading. The poets will discuss their newest books, creative process, and other topics with BOA award winning Publisher and Executive Director Peter Conners in a live audience Q&A.

Rachel Mennies is the author of The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021) and The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards (Texas Tech University Press, 2014), winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry and finalist for a National Jewish Book Award. Her poems and essays have been published at The Believer, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Poetry Foundation, and elsewhere. rachelmennies.com

Kendra DeColo is the author of three poetry collections, I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers From the World (BOA Editions, 2021), My Dinner with Ron Jeremy (Third Man Books, 2016) and Thieves in the Afterlife (Saturnalia Books, 2014), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2013 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House Magazine, Waxwing, Los Angeles Review, Bitch Magazine, VIDA, and elsewhere. kendradecolo.com

Geffrey Davis is the author of Night Angler (BOA Editions, 2019) and Revising the Storm (BOA Editions, 2014), winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Finalist. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Mississippi Review, New England Review, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, PBS NewsHour, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. geffreydavis.com

Peter Conners is the author of multiple books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry with such presses as Da Capo Press, City Lights, Cornell University Press, and White Pine Press. His new poetry collection, Beyond the Edge of Suffering, will be published by White Pine Press in April 2022. His first novel will be published by Manic D Press in June 2022. Conners is the Executive Director and Publisher of BOA Editions.

BOA Editions, a not-for-profit publisher of poetry and other literary works, fostering readership and appreciation of contemporary literature. By identifying, cultivating, and publishing both new and established poets and selecting authors of unique literary talent, BOA brings vital voices to a world of readers.  📷

Rachel Mennies & Friends presented with BOA Editions