Special FeaturerbdJack B. Bedell, special feature, poetry

Jack B. Bedell: You’ve Run Out of Time

Special FeaturerbdJack B. Bedell, special feature, poetry
Jack B. Bedell: You’ve Run Out of Time
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There Is No Train but the Tracks Will Lead You There

                                                        —Honey Island

 

 

No need

                                for maps or guides to find

the swamp’s heart. Everything that touches

                                this mud leaves its own prints

to follow—eagles, nutria, black bear, gators—

                                all claws to mark your way.

Trust your own nose to tell you

                                            what smells

should not be followed. If you see gray fur

                                                        caught on a palmetto frond,

                                or count four toes on any webbed tracks,

                                                                    find the sun in the sky

                                                        right away. West of dead center

                                                                                            means

                                you’ve run out of time. Move

                    in the direction any line on your palm

leads. Do not linger near shadows

                                                                                            or look straight

                                                        into any yellow light.

                                                                                                        Remember,

almost everything where you are can outrun you,

and what can’t is drifting just below the surface

                                                                                of the water you just used

                                                                                            to cool your face.

 

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 Elliptic (Yellow Flag Press, 2016), Revenant (Blue Horse Press, 2016), and No Brother, This Storm (Mercer University Press, fall 2018). He has recently been appointed by Governor John Bel Edwards to serve as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019. 
 

Special FeaturerbdJames Croal Jackson, special feature, poetry

James Croal Jackson: Meanwhile, in Real Life

James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in FLAPPERHOUSE, Rust + Moth, The Bitter Oleander, and elsewhere. He edits The Mantle and is a former winner of the William Redding Memorial Poetry Contest. Find him in Columbus, Ohio or at jimjakk.com.
 

Special FeaturerbdJames Croal Jackson, special feature, poetry
James Croal Jackson: Meanwhile, in Real Life
Special FeaturerbdPhilip Schaefer, special feature, poetry

Philip Schaefer: Everyone Else’s Darkness

Philip Schaefer’s first collection of poems Bad Summon won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from the University of Utah Press and will be released Summer 2017. He is the author of three chapbooks, two of which were co-written with friend and poet Jeff Whitney. He won the 2016 Meridian Editor’s Prize in poetry and has work out or due out in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Thrush Poetry Journal, Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, Salt Hill, Bat City Review, The Adroit Journal, Baltimore Review, and Passages North among others. He tends bar in Missoula, MT.

Special FeaturerbdPhilip Schaefer, special feature, poetry
Philip Schaefer: Everyone Else’s Darkness
Special FeaturerbdJoshua Lindenbaum, poetry, special feature

Joshua Lindenbaum: Google Search

Joshua Lindenbaum’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in HEArt Online, Breadcrumbs, West Texas Literary Review, Typishly, Five2One Magazine, Silhouette Press, Mistake House, The Bangalore Review, 3Elements Review, and several other publications. He’s currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at Binghamton University and will become a full-time professor despite a dismal job market. The pen has been his companion for quite some time, but it’s still waiting for him “to put a ring on it.” 

Special FeaturerbdJoshua Lindenbaum, poetry, special feature
Joshua Lindenbaum: Google Search
Special FeaturerbdStanford Cheung, poetry, special feature

Stanford Cheung: Even Blue Is a Body

Stanford Cheung is a poet and musician from Toronto. He is the author of the collection Structures from the Still (Akinoga Press, 2018). His chapbooks include Any Seam or Needlework (The Operating System, 2016), Kite Extension (Words(on)Pages, 2017) and Comfort of Malice (Inspiritus, 2018). Presently, Stanford resides in Montreal.


Special FeaturerbdStanford Cheung, poetry, special feature
Stanford Cheung: Even Blue Is a Body