Swamp Thing Gives Longfellow His Due About a Couple of Things
by Jack B. Bedell
That old poet was on point about the tide and darkness. I sit on this coast every night watching waves steal everything they touch—footprints and sand, graveyards and highways. And always darkness settles heavy on all this loss. No matter how far away the sun shoves it, the dark just rolls back in with the tide. Both of them as relentless as iambs droning toward the end of a line.
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. Jack’s work has appeared in Barren, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Okay Donkey, EcoTheo, The Hopper, Terrain, and other journals. His latest collection is Color All Maps New (Mercer University Press, 2021). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
