Rhythm & Rhyme
An interview with Louisiana Poet Laureate Jack Bedell
I’ve heard my father’s voice enough
without listening to his words
to know he’d never waste that much
breath on one person.
Whatever he’s saying,
it’s meant for all of us, and none.
If you’re guessing the above excerpt was taken from a poem by Robert Frost or James Dickey, you might be surprised to know the author is actually Louisiana native Jack Bedell—the state’s newest poet laureate. Like Frost and Dickey, Bedell navigates a lush, rustic landscape, populating his poems with images and turns of phrase that seem somehow both intimate and universal at the same time. It’s this rare quality, I suspect, this uniquely cosmic and personal tone that prompted Governor John Bel Edwards (in August of last year) to select Bedell as Louisiana’s poet laureate.
Author of nine books, including Call and Response (with Darrell Bourque, 2010), Come Rain, Come Shine (2006), What Passes for Love (2001), Bone-Hollow, True: New & Selected Poems (2013), Elliptic (2016), and Revenant (2016), Bedell has also served as editor of Southeastern’s literary journal, Louisiana Literature, since 1992, and has worked with the LEH’s award-winning PRIME TIME Family Literacy Program.
I really want the poems in No Brother, This Storm to do more than inventory loss. I want these poems to give hope that life will find beauty moving forward, both for me personally and for our coast here in south Louisiana.
Poet Laureate is just the most recent in a series of accolades Bedell has received over the course of his writing career, including The Governor’s Award for Artistic Achievement in 2007, the 2005 Special Humanities Award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and Southeastern’s President’s Award for Excellence in Artistic Activity in 1997 (one of the highest awards presented by the university to faculty and staff). He’s also been nominated four times to serve as state Poet Laureate.
Excited by all the buzz surrounding Bedell’s selection, I decided to speak to him about his recent collection of poetry, No Brother, This Storm, as well as his how he plans to use his new platform as Poet Laureate.
CT: Your writing demonstrates an obvious connection to your native Louisiana culture and landscape. What is it about Louisiana that strikes a chord in you? Why is it so important to you and your writing?
JB: I’m incredibly indebted to the people, places, and tradition that have formed me in south Louisiana. The marsh where I was raised, my Acadian heritage, the oil fields and canals that made livelihoods for my family—these are unique to Louisiana. I don’t exist without them. To say I love Louisiana seems trite. It is love to me, actually. Just like family is.
CT: One of the most satisfying aspects of your work (for me, at least) is that your poems always seem to tell an intriguing story. How has the Southern tradition of storytelling shaped your poetry?
JB: As long as I can remember, people in my family have told stories. It’s how we passed the time. Even my father, who wasn’t much for talking, told us stories through the dog. These stories, like bible stories, carried for us everything we needed to know to be decent, happy people.
Over the past thirty years or so, I’ve done my best to learn how to [tell] stories within the confines of poetry. A good bit of that time, I’ve been concerned with learning to flatten my tone to let those stories shine. In my last couple of collections, I’ve been really trying to let go of the notion that every story, every poem, has to include the beginning, middle, and end of its story. No Brother, This Storm definitely has its share of micro narratives that focus on episodes or portions of stories. Hopefully, this elliptic style adds a little resonance to the poems in the book.
CT: Tell us about No Brother, This Storm. What motivated you to write this collection of poems?
JB: The first poems written for No Brother, This Storm focused heavily on coastal erosion, loss of coastline due to storm damage, and efforts in south Louisiana to restore some of that loss. At the time I started writing the poems for this collection, new maps predicting catastrophic loss over the next twenty-five years were popping up everywhere, and whole communities were being displaced by this loss, like in Isle de Jean Charles.
About a third of the way into this project, I lost my mother suddenly, and the greater concept of loss led the poems in a new direction. At first I wanted to sequester the subjects, but pretty quickly I gave up on that notion, or rather gave in to the notion that it was all one rumination.
Loss informs the whole collection, but more than that I wanted to offer some form of hope, some form of praise for the efforts to renew and restore. I really want the poems in No Brother, This Storm to do more than inventory loss. I want these poems to give hope that life will find beauty moving forward, both for me personally and for our coast here in south Louisiana.
CT: How has your life has changed since becoming poet laureate of Louisiana? How do you plan to use the platform?
JB: I really can’t say my life has changed since Governor Edwards appointed me Poet Laureate. I’ve always been committed to shining a light on necessary voices in our state though Louisiana Literature and the [Louisiana Literature] Press. I’ve also made it a priority to improve literacy in Louisiana, and to work with young writers to make sure they have the confidence they deserve to have, as well as the opportunities to share their voices. Now, though, I have the real privilege of doing that work all over the state instead of just here in south Louisiana.
CT: Which authors have been an inspiration to you, and why?
JB: Louisiana writers like Darrell Bourque, Albert Belisle Davis, Julie Kane, Brenda Marie Osbey, and many, many others have been tremendous inspirations to me over the course of my career. They’ve shown the way, both in terms of their writing and in terms of the role models they are.
Lately, I owe a tremendous debt to writers like Joan Naviyuk Kane, John Sibley Williams, and Jericho Brown whose technique and voices push me to keep progressing, to keep pressing the boundaries of what poetry is capable of achieving.
No Brother, This Storm
by Jack B. Bedell
Mercer University Press
$16
mupress.org
Read a few of Bedell's poems, as published in the Country Roads September 2017 issue, here.