Description

Mercer University Press, paperback

Publication Date:February 1, 2021

Publisher Marketing:In his thirteenth collection of poetry, Jack B. Bedell examines moments of reparation and continuance in the face of loss. A grandmother’s beignet recipe passed on to her granddaughter, a lost lake restored by heavy rain, a dead father’s wisdom returned in dreams, over and again, the poems in COLOR ALL MAPS NEW offer revision and restoration, light and hope. By turns personal, ecological, cultural, and fantastic, these poems promise new maps to navigate damaged territories. The rituals of family and South Louisiana culture share space with folklore and history here. From his home state’s wetlands to its prairies and into the recesses of his own dreamscapes, Bedell draws maps toward recovery and reinvention in these poems, filling all space left empty by death, or storm, or slow erosion with colors of possibility and the hope of new growth.