Biography

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. His latest collections are Bone-Hollow, True: New & Selected Poems; Call & Response; Come Rain, Come Shine; What Passes for Love; and At the Bonehouse. Bedell was a finalist for the 2015 Louisiana State Poet Laureate.

Schedule

10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.
State Library of Louisiana, Capitol View Room
Discussion
Hardlines: Rough South Poetry

11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Barnes & Noble Bookselling Tent
Book Signing

Noon to 12:45 p.m.
State Library of Louisiana, Capitol View Room
Reading
Down to the Dark River

1 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Bookselling Tent
Book Signing

Down the River Dark: Contemporary Poems about the Mississippi River (editor)

Down to the Dark River: Contemporary Poems about the Mississippi River contains the work of 100 poets, including Dick Allen, Joseph Bathanti, Kelly Cherry, Malaika Favorite, Ava Leavell Haymon, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ted Kooser, Linda Pastan, Virgil Suarez, and Natasha Trethewey.

Hardlines: Rough South Poetry (contributor)

A collection of contemporary poems exploring the grit of work, love, and the land down South

Daniel Cross Turner and William Wright's anthology Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry centers on the darker side of Southern experience while presenting a remarkable array of poets from diverse backgrounds in the American South. As tough-minded as they are high-minded, the sixty contemporary poets and two hundred poems anthologized in Hard Lines enhance the powerful genre of "Grit Lit."

The volume gathers the work of poets who have for decades formed the heart of Southern poetry as well as that of emerging voices who will soon become significant figures in Southern literature. These poems sting our senses into awareness of a gritty world down South: hard work, hard love, hard drinking, hard times; but they also explore the importance of the land and rural experience, as well as race- , gender- , and class-based conflicts.

Readers will see, hear (for poetry is meant to ring in the ears), and feel (for poetry is meant to beat in the blood); there is plenty of raucousness in this anthology. And yet the cultural conflicts that ignite Southern wildness are often depicted in a manner that is lyrical without becoming lugubrious, mournful but not maudlin. Some of these poets are coming to terms with a visibly transforming culture—a "roughness" in and of itself. Indeed many of these poets are helping to change the definition of the South. The anthology also features biographical information on each poet in addition to further reading suggestions and scholarly sources on contemporary poetry.