Bell was recorded discussing and reading poetry for the New Letters on the Air radio program in November 1984. A cassette recording of this performance was released by the University of Missouri Press in 1990.

The speech Bell gave upon becoming the first poet laureate of the state of Iowa is available online at http://www.uiowa.edu/~humiowa/marvinbspeech.htm and includes the text of “White Clover,” a gentle nature poem that exemplifies the tone of his kinder works.