"Julie Kane's poetry mixes the vulgar with the ecstatic, the earthy with the heavenly, and a little piece of American soil with the universal longings of the past and future. She's a wonderful formalist but there's a touch of the anarchist in every line. To read her poetry is to live briefly in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana -- to feel the heat, the air, the water, the fire, the life here."
-- Mary McCay, The New Orleans Times Picayune

"Part Ray Charles and Philip Larkin, part Dorothy Parker and Barry Hannah, some Mae West and some Miles Davis, Julie Kane's poems are so much fun they stick like the blues behind them. Nobody writes villanelles so effortlessly, nobody bares her teeth so brightly, nobody sashays so come-hitheringly, nobody is so formidably cool."
-- Dave Smith

Julie Kane is a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and a longtime resident of Louisiana. Her six books include three collections of poetry, one volume of non-fiction, and two edited anthologies. Her 2003 poetry collection, Rhythm & Booze, was Maxine Kumin's selection for the National Poetry Series and one of four finalists for the 2005 Poets' Prize. Her new collection, Jazz Funeral, is judge David Mason's selection for the 2009 Donald Justice Poetry Prize.


Praise for Julie Kane's Jazz Funeral (2009)

"Julie Kane has written a brilliant new book . . . . Part elegy for a city and a way of life, part meditation on mortality and grace, this book is wonderfully, defiantly alive."
-- David Mason