Winner of the 1997 Texas Review Southern 
and Southwestern Poets Breakthrough Series


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 Acadiana-saltwater marshes and cypress 
swamps; cleaning redfish, hunting teal, listening to the broken 
tones in an old oil-field worker's voice-making the region and 
its inhabitants accessible to a wider audience and at the same 
time bringing him closer to understanding himself and his 
heritage.




JACK BEDELL is an assistant professor of English at 
Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, where he also 
serves as poetry editor for Louisiana Literature. His 
poems have appeared in several journals, including Kansas 
Quarterly, Kentucky Poetry Review, Negative Capability, 
Yarrow, Southern Humanities Review, and Critique; 
his chapbook, Sleeping with the Net-Maker, was 
published by the Devil's Millhopper Press in 1995.