by Rebecca Doverspike

Doors that open to the sea terrify me.
One day I’ll walk out, fall over
the threshold and maybe feel relief.
The ocean, after all, is lovely.
-Lisa Beans, from “Edward Hopper, You Make Me Feel This Way”

When I first heard of Lisa Beans, it was as an incoming MFA candidate—she sent a postcard to welcome me. I smiled through her lovely cursive words, and when I reached the bottom I thought, “Lisa Beans! That is the perfect name for a poet,” and indeed it is. As I’ve gotten to know Lisa in our one overlapping year, I cherish experiencing her graciousness and warm-hearted kindness.

There’s a gorgeous articulateness to Lisa’s poetry, a thoroughness and beautiful emotional clarity that asks us to move slowly through her language. A kind of quietness that pierces through (in a way I didn’t know quietness could do). Often her poems involve turns of surprise and I feel like I’m traversing new landscape in myself and the world (her language draws those together) as I read. She seems both aware of and a participant in the way poetry exists in/of the world—finding inspiration in a newspaper article about swans to paintings to objects or animals resonant with emotion, to scientific matters like comet scars, light, and pain indexes. I find Lisa’s poetry graceful as well as emotionally powerful. Somehow, she manages both the calm and the storm (indeed, emotional clarity involves both). I’ve heard Lisa read on several occasions and her voice matches the beauty of her lines. So much so that if/when we come to a place of pain in the poem, I feel it deeply; it bows the heart. There’s a sense of spirit in her poems, a kind of visionary response to the world, that stays with me long after I’m through reading/listening and is something I hope many people get the chance to experience. For now you can find her work in Connotation Press and Barnstone, and keep watch for more.

Often when I really admire an artist, poets in particular, I find the kinds of interview questions people ask to be rather ridiculous and often missing the point. To be fair, this isn’t truly the fault of the interviewer—when something of a poem’s brilliance or beauty speaks to us, takes us under, gives us new lungs with which to breathe the world in, or clears the ones we’ve got, the effect is always partly mysterious. If a poem is successful, if it does something to us in a transformative way, if we are wholly absorbed in experiencing its lines and spaces, in many ways such a poem eclipses questions –we’re somewhere in it. One may wonder, then, why I’ve even undertaken to interview a poet I deeply admire, but the redeeming part of this equation, the part that keeps us reading even when we think the questions silly, is that the poet finds a way to respond brilliantly in spite of the scaffolding. The poet’s personality still comes through, because, as Lisa’s poetry reminds, poetry isn’t confined to the margins on a page but also experiencing the world and being responsive to it. Where do you think those lines come from?

When did you begin writing poetry? What led you to it?
I didn’t begin writing poetry until my junior year of undergraduate. I was originally an English literature major and took a fiction writing class to fulfill an elective of that major. I realized I like creative writing much more than the literature courses that I was taking. However, the short story just seemed like too much. I got a lot of praise for the first paragraph in my first short story and then I lost some focus after that so naturally my professor suggested I take his poetry workshop. I liked the smaller parameters of the poem and line, the focus on every word.

What kinds of experiences influence your work most? What does your writing draw from?
Well Willa Cather says, “Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” So definitely childhood, being in love, place. The basics. Specifically the landscape of Nebraska where I grew up is always haunting my writing whether it be literal descriptions of the prairie or the emotional resonance that I connect with that place.

How has your writing changed during your time in the MFA program? How have your teachers and fellow-workshoppers interacted with and/or helped shape your work?
My writing has gotten better. It’s just gotten more multi-faceted I guess. I think I’ve learned how to write a really great poem but then I realize I need to explore the stanza more or syntax more. Mary Ann and Jim are amazing teachers; they are incredibly nurturing, knowledgeable and perceptive. My peers usually know exactly what’s going on in my poems, good or bad and that’s really helpful to have that perspective. The wonderful thing about this program is that everyone is supportive and cares about your work and you as a person.

What does your writing process involve?
It involves a lot happening before the actual writing of the poem. A lot of thinking. Mary Ann Samyn says that everything is poetry writing: doing the dishes, watching the bumblebees outside the window which I am doing right now—that’s all part of it. I line might come to me and I’ll just think about it for a long time. I’ll hear it over and over again and then the line will start interacting with the bumblebees or a dream that I had the night before or a memory. Sometimes I have a specific experience or memory that I want to write a poem about and that’s usually more difficult because then tendency is to write the narrative of that experience but that’s not what I do. So often I’ll free write about it, get out that narrative and then I’ll start to understand what’s really interesting about it, where the poem is.

Which poets do you most admire and why?
I admire the strangeness of language balanced with the emotional clarity of ee cummings. I actually admire that in a lot of poets, Jeffrey McDaniel, Wallace Stevens, Matthew Zapruder. I admire the simple beauty of emotion, image and language of James Wright, Christine Garren, Franz Wright, and Li-Young Lee.

What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned in the program? What did you find most challenging?
Just how to write my poems and to have faith in them. For most challenging, as I stated before, thinking that I’ve figured out how to write my poem and then realizing I still have a lot learn, which I’m sure will be a life long process.

What’s next for you?
Hmmm….good question. I’m a finalist for a Fulbright to Poland. I should being hearing back from that anytime now but I’m also applying for teaching jobs all over. Maybe work at a flower shop if none of that works out and continue to write, of course.
Update: Lisa won the Fulbright! She will be heading to Poland this fall!

Any advice for incoming MFA students or other writers at large?
Read a lot. I know that is always said but I really don’t know how you could become a better writer without reading extensively. Also, eat at Tailpipes often.

What do you say when someone asks you, “What is your poetry about?”
I roll my eyes at them. Kidding! I guess I would say beautiful things even if they are the ugly things.