By Jack B. Bedell
—“The land feels nothing.”
The land might not feel anything, but
we do. It’s not so much that the poem’s
led us into a blind spot in what we know
of American history, but that it’s brought us
straight to a blind spot we have in our
knowledge of America, of this land,
of possibilities, of what we are
capable of as a people. And even
if the class and I won’t say it,
we know, together, all of us,
our grandparents are with us
in this silence, our parents,
hell, our own children, alive
and in waiting, they all share
the resonant, stunning ignorance
we feel now in light of what fences
and guards and government grassland
can mean, to who we think we are.
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 HAD, Heavy Feather, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Moist, Okay Donkey, EcoTheo, The Hopper, Terrain, and other journals. His work has also been selected for inclusion in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
