The poems in AGAINST THE WOODS' DARK TRUNKS stare deep into the shadows of Jack Bedell's native South Louisiana swamp to find ghosts, monsters, death, and flood waters. These poems also look hard enough to find cypress trees reaching up for whatever sunlight is left in the sky, and they see the promise of new growth along the water's edge. Every folktale and campfire fright here has a family story, the sparkling magic of a daughter's dreams, open fields, and jazz melodies to tilt these poems' scales toward hope. Even in the darkest of memories, the most broken of hearts, and the longest of long days, there is grace to be found. Line by line, these poems dig for it.