Prairie Schooner NewsletterApril 16, 2014
Spring '14 Feature: "Chicken Soup" 
Scott Beal
Continuing our spring issue feature series: this week, we're highlighting the poetry of Scott Beal. Beal, a lecturer at the Sweetland Center for Writing, is a poet concerned with Americana and its living history, told through narrative poems with a personal touch. His new poem for Prairie Schooner, "Chicken Soup," is an apocryphal account of the classic dish's invention by a pair of nuns:

 

And what, you may ask, would such a crucial 
roast chicken be doing so close  
to Francesca's bathing quarters? History 
suspects the aroma was so intense  
that Mother Maria could not resist  
spiriting it directly to give her lover  
a sniff.  

 

To read Beal's poem in its entirety, visit the Prairie Schooner website. We are also featuring new writing from Melissa Febos, Martha Rhodes, Candace G. Wiley, Ashley Robertson, Alamgir Hashmi, and Stacey Waite; click here to find their work. Prairie Schooner is available in print, for Kindle, and on LitRagger. And, if you'd like four issues for the price of three, become a subscriber today!
Accepting Applications for Managing Editor Position at Prairie Schooner!

This news comes with a bittersweet announcement:
Prairie Schooner Managing Editor Marianne Kunkel has accepted a professorship position at Missouri Western State University in Saint Joseph. Kunkel, a poet by trade, has been a huge part of Prairie Schooner over the last several years. Her keen eye for submissions, organizational skills, and witty enthusiasm around the office will be sorely missed.
 
Look at those (mostly) smiling faces.
As excited as we are for this next step in Kunkel's career, her departure leaves us understaffed. So, Prairie Schooner is accepting applications for Managing Editor. 
 
To learn more about the job, visit the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Employment Opportunities website. Applicants must have a master's degree in English and two years of relevant publishing or literary experience. If you think you'd be a good fit, please apply!
Book Prize Celebration Recap

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who attended the Prairie Schooner Book Prize Celebration last week. It was wonderful to hear 2012 Book Prize winners  
Orlando Ricardo Menes and Xhenet Aliu read their work in person.
Xhenet Aliu and Orlando Ricardo Menes

On the Prairie Schooner blog, intern Benjamin Curttright posted a brief writeup of the event. Of Menes's poems, Curttright wrote, "They were poems of creation and innovation; they focused on one time, one place, one photograph, one object." Curttright was also impressed by Aliu, "Aliu is clearly a writer with a huge personality, and her voice shines through the sometimes-abrasive-but-always-funny dialogue."

To read the rest of Curttright's post, visit the Prairie Schooner blog. Menes's book of poetry Fetish and Aliu's short story collection, Domesticated Wild Things, are out now via the University of Nebraska Press. To learn more about the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, head over to our website. Finally, stay tuned for readigns with Menes and Aliu on Air Schooner! 

Prairie Schooner, a national literary quarterly published with the support of the English Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Press, is home to the best stories, poetry, essays, and reviews being published today by beginning, mid-career, and established writers.
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Featured FUSION Poem
Fishbone
by Johar Buang

  

The body disintegrates
until what remains 
are like the bones of fish
that can no longer return

    to the sea
the source where elegant

    truths
exact a singular

    conviction
on what existence means

 

in this dry season
we infer the brevity of

    experience
after weathering

    challenges at sea
warring
between asperity and

    adversity
why must it be this futile
this life impelled by

    circumstance
Or is it we who fail time

    and again
at perfecting ourselves
answering a vocation of a

    different strand
a fraternity that is without

    end

 

  

This poem is currently part of our FUSION web series.