Double Congratulations to Lisa Beans!

Not only has Lisa Beans successfully defended her MFA thesis, Pain Index, but she also just found out that she's received a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship and will be going to Poland next year. So double—or more!—congratulations to Lisa from her committee (Jim Harms, Mark Brazaitis, Mary Ann Samyn) and, of course, all of you.

Here's a poem from Lisa's manuscript and, because we know how Lisa feels about landscape, especially her Nebraska home, here's a photo of Poland looking very much like, well, Nebraska (as we imagine it).

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Today I Found Your Mother's Recipe Tucked Inside a Book of Poems

Now, I should describe the sky

or birds, endless variety.

But this ache like the time on wielded metal

I nearly cut off my pinky toe,

hanging limp: red and pink and glimpse

of white. The blood coloring the ground,

the ground inside my body. Healing

is only a murmur. Hundreds of dead

starlings, frozen in trees or scattered

on the ground: iridescent rotting apples.

Not a mystery (poisoned by a feed lot owner);

there is an explanation for nearly everything.

Congratulations, Lisa, and happy travels and send us some poems.