Rhythm and Booze

by Julie Kane

Arranged in four parts--each associated with a particular Louisiana city--the poems in Rhythm & Booze trace the hardships and uncertainties, as well as the moments of unexpected sublimity, of a life lived in a continuous struggle between fresh starts and destructive old patterns.
 
Mirroring the music of New Orleans, Kane's poems combine traditional form with improvisational flourishes. Rhythm & Booze charts her progress as she undertakes a number of journeys, from youth to experience, from blues bars to college classrooms, from city to country, from chaos to something approaching peace.
 

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2003

About the author

Julie Kane is a contemporary American poet, scholar, and editor. She was the Louisiana Poet Laureate for the 2011–2013 term.

Although born in Massachusetts, Kane has lived in Louisiana for over three decades and writes about the region with the doubled consciousness of a non-native. Her work shows the influence of the Confessional poets; indeed, she was a student in Anne Sexton's graduate poetry seminar at Boston University at the time of Sexton's suicide. She is also associated with the New Formalist movement in contemporary poetry, although she has published free verse as well as formal verse. Her formal poems tend to bend the "rules" of poetic forms and employ slant rhyme.

She is the winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize, judged by Louise Glück. Other awards include the Lewis P. Simpson Award, the 2002 National Poetry Series for Rhythm & Booze (selected by Maxine Kumin), and the 2009 Donald Justice Poetry Prize.

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read much poetry, but when I do, I know what I like -- and I love this. Kane captures in words so much of what is visual about the state of Louisiana: the New Orleans bar culture, the Mississippi River, egrets and much, much more -- including the feelings and emotions that come out of living in this state, or out of simply living. This volume is brilliant -- in all senses of the word.

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I think this is wonderful poetry. They are poems about Louisiana and about drinking and about love. They are poems whose spirit is located in the 4 parts of the book: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, St. Gabriel, and Natchitoches. I've been unable to locate St. Gabriel on any map of mine (except a small town in Quebec) but I'm confident the poetic geography and outlook is Louisiana. This seems to be very personal poetry. The opening section, New Orleans, features a bartender as a recurring character. The love of this character, particularly, is obsessive. Alcohol may complete the threesome with poet and bartender. Bars, drinking, and love aren't the concern of all the poems here, though. Among the many things to see here and sublime ways of seeing them is a poignant poem of rhymed couplets about the teddy bear in middle age. Kane is particularly adept at the villanelle, a 19-line poem with a complex arrangement of rhymes but only 2 rhyming sounds. Such discipline forces the poet to be elegant and Kane rises to it. She impressed me, a villanelle fan, even when the poem echoes the honky tonk. One remarkable longer poem, "The Bottle Factory," recalls the period after finishing high school when she worked with other women washing bottles. She longed to be as fast and efficient as those working class women, longed to be as good as they at such menial work rather than good with words. I'm glad she's good with words. Her throaty song is tinged with grace, her raw craving shows tenderness, her bluesy style includes dignity, her rock and roll is excellent poetry. She's Julie Kane.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Booker Again”

Booker is dead, but I still go
sit on the Maple Leaf patio

among the palmettos and elephant ears
to listen to music and drink a few beers

and check on the pink hibiscus tree
firing its blossoms like flares at sea

late in the year. Mention his name
and the bar help repeats the same

handful of stories—how he vomited on
the keys one night and Big John

had to clean it up with a bar rag;
how the dope arrived by White Fleet Cab;

how he stood up once with his pantseat shitty.
Beauty is truth, but truth is not pretty.

Julie Kane’s poetry collection Rhythm & Booze documents her time as a rebel poet in New Orleans and proceeds to poems documenting her time at the university in Natchitoches. She employs formal structures deftly. I often didn’t notice the established boundaries she was working in. Kane has a few demons to exorcise, and her verse can be coarse, even scandalous. In the end, though, she presents some breathtaking pieces on nature (egrets, spider lilies, ants intent on emptying a hummingbird feeder). This collection is memorable and vivid and highly recommended.

”Moonrise on the Cane River”

The moon is a surprised white face over the darkening river
Even before a pair of blue-gray wings swoops down
Between the O of its mouth and the O of a surfacing fish,
And the phone rings, and it’s you in Baton Rouge
Grilling a silver catfish and staring at the moon.

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