"These twenty poems are consistent in both tone and
accomplishment. Each displays Jack Bedell's compassion
and artistry, evidence of a full-hearted and contemplative
life. He has a remarkable gift for precision and revealed
feeling. One looks forward to his next full-length book."
—Robert Phillips, Series Final Judge
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.
"Cicadas in trees, porches creaking, the swamp with ‘a life
older than we can possibly know,' Jack Bedell's What Passes
for Love lingers in the heart like the rhythm and lyrics of
Zydeco. With his clear vision of the natural world, he probes
the complexity of Cajun culture, its celebration of life that
is coupled with a strong sense of moral value. A husband who
has taken a teenage bride less than seven months after his
first wife's death is kept awake by neighbors beating spoons
on copper pots to raise his dead wife's voice. Fishing with
his uncle for bull red, Bedell finds words we can live by:
‘just in case you grab something more decisive than you,
before it grabs you back, let it go.'"—Vivian Shipley, Editor,
Connecticut Review.
Born and raised in south Louisiana, JACK BEDELL earned his
B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Northwestern State
University in Natchitoches. He also holds an M.F.A. in poetry
from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and a Ph.D. from
the University of Louisiana–Lafayette. Bedell teaches composit-
ion, American literature, technical writing, and creative writing
at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. His first full-
length collection of poetry, At the Bonehouse, was selected by
David Bottoms as winner of the 1997 Texas Review Poetry Prize.
His poetry, reviews, and criticism have appeared in several journals,
including Kansas Quarterly, Kentucky Poetry Review, Negative Cap-
ability, Yarrow, West Branch, Southern Humanities Review, and Critique.
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