NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State University Professor of English Emerita Julie Kane deliver a talk covering her latest volume of poetry, “Naked Ladies: New and Selected Poems” on Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the Cammie G. Henry Research Center (Room 301) of Watson Library. Admission is free and open to the public. 

Kane’s newest book includes the best poems from her five previous books along with some new and previously uncollected poems. “Naked Ladies” is published by the LSU Press.  

“A book of new and selected poems is a career milestone for many poets who have published multiple poetry collections,” said Kane. “Over time, older books go out of print or it becomes prohibitively expensive for someone who enjoys a poet’s work to track down and purchase a copy of every single past book.” 

Kane said when she began thinking of a new and selected collection, she reached out to half a dozen trusted friends and relatives asking them which poems from her five previous books were their favorites.  

“I compiled their responses and included all the ones that got multiple votes, some of which surprised me, plus some that were my own personal favorites,” said Kane. 

For the new and previously uncollected poems section, Kane worked closely with her editor at LSU Press, poet Dave Smith. Kane said the new works in the book have something in common 

“My earlier poems are often full of emotional drama. The new poems are cooler and quieter in tone,” said Kane. “I hope readers will feel that the new poems are looking back on events and relationships in life with a sense of wisdom, maturity, peace and gratitude,” she said. 

Kane graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in English and winning first prize in the Mademoiselle Magazine College Poetry Competition, judged by Anne Sexton and James Merrill. That led her to graduate school in creative writing at Boston University, where she was one of Sexton’s students at the time of her death. The next year, she became the first woman to hold the George Bennett Fellowship in Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy. Kane earned a doctorate in English at Louisiana State University. Her dissertation on the villanelle won the Lewis P. Simpson Award, and she also won LSU’s Academy of American Poets Prize, judged by Louise Gluck. Kane joined Northwestern’s faculty in 1999. She was winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award, Mildred Hart Bailey Faculty Research Award and Dr. Jean D’Amato-Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award. During 2002 she was a Fulbright Scholar to Lithuania, teaching at Vilnius Pedagogical University. She won the National Poetry Series, judged by Maxine Kumin, in 2002 and the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, judged by David Mason, in 2009. From 2011-2013 she served as the Louisiana Poet Laureate. In 2018 she joined the poetry faculty of the Western Colorado University low-residency MFA program. 

“Naked Ladies” is available at https://lsupress.org/9780807183748/naked-ladies or from online book sellers.