Storytelling is integral to the culture of south Louisiana, particularly the Atchafalaya Basin, where Jack Bedell grew up. Raised, however, with a generation of south Louisianans taught to act Middle American rather than Acadian, Bedell attempts in his poetry to recapture a culture. The poems in At the Bonehouse record the successes and failures of his search to discover what shaped him.
Through his narrative poetry, Bedell provides an accurate representation of the landscape of the region and makes sense of its culture and people. His poems reflect the images and experiences common to...

Few things will bring people together in south Louisiana quicker than stories, food, and festivals that have both. The poems in Jack Bedell's "What Passes for Love" show all that and a little lagniappe. From a midnight chari vari, to the Fete de la Roulaison (the Grinding Festival), to newlyweds making love in the cane field and fishing tales galore, Bedell writes about the many sides of Louisiana's Acadian culture and its people. Poem by poem, this collection builds an honest, evocative, and sensitive world of stories told by a writer with an obvious love of place.

High-spirited and unafraid, full of Louisiana Cajun zest, quick to anger and quick to forgive, and quick to offer unabashed praise for this world, Jack Bedell's new poems take us through lived experiences, come rain or come shine. He tells his story and fixes his place in these remarkably examining lyrics that grab hold and won't let go.-Heather Ross MillerThese poems are infused with a deep understanding of what it is to be human because Bedell has cored them from the heart. In Come Rain, Come Shine, Jack Bedell has the vision to realize where a significant story is, and in telling it, he...

The poems in "Call and Response" are the record of a friendship, conversations in verse with topics as varied and diverse as fine art and the traditions of southern Louisiana. The poems created here are a drawing out of the love and respect they have for each other and for the things they share with the world. It is an exchange in the tradition of artists like Homer and Lady Murasaki, as well as in the common traditions of work songs sung by field workers throughout.