Naked Ladies: New and Selected Poems

by Julie Kane

Capturing the breadth of Julie Kane’s poetics across nearly four decades—formalist and neo-confessional, steeped in both Boston Irish-American and New Orleans cultures—Naked Ladies displays the full range and achievement of her work. Gathered here in one volume are selections from Kane’s five previous collections, including her long-out-of-print first book and her subsequent winners of the National Poetry Series and Donald Justice Poetry Prize. Readers will also find a generous selection of new and previously uncollected work. The title of this milestone collection acknowledges Kane’s place in the tradition of women confessional poets, evokes the nickname of a common Louisiana flower, and nods to the honesty and frankness that characterize her poems’ speakers.

Genres: Poetry

167 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 6, 2025

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

[Antonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading Naked Ladies, Julie Kane’s most recent poetry collection — this one being a compilation of new and selected poems from her five earlier books. I’ve been reading Kane’s poetry for a long time, having first learned about (and met) her at the West Chester Poetry Conference, which I attended for many years. Kane, who grew up Irish-Catholic in Boston, but spent much of her life in New Orleans, captures a strong sense of both places. A modern formalist, she writes smart, funny, mischievous, and often sexy, sonnets, villanelles, and pantoums, as well as rhymed quatrains. She’s been called Edna St. Vincent Millay for boomers (Natalie McCracken) and a 21st century Dorothy Parker (Molly Peacock).

As the volume’s title signals, her poems are confessional in style, their speakers spilling open (and not so open) secrets. They include a fabulous diversity of subjects and feelings: poems about nights in bars, one-night stands, loves lost to drink or time; youth and aging; mothers and being mothered; as well as pecan trees, egrets, cats, and cars. The newer work comprises poems of an older woman that capture the knowledge of life’s swift passing and the lessons we come to learn too well. The collection also pays tribute to women (relatives and others, including many “mothers of Ireland”) who have gone before, who all have something to teach us. I’ve treasured my collection of Julie’s earlier books. It was pure pleasure to revisit some of my favorite poems and read her more recent work

Julie Kane is a past Louisiana poet laureate and a Fulbright scholar. She is Professor Emerita at Northwestern State University and currently teaches at an MFA program at Western Colorado University.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many poems in this book but not a single good one. Julie Kane’s poems tend to peter out and miss their emotional mark. They build towards an idea and I keep waiting for a punch that never comes. Her imagery doesn’t make the ordinary more compelling and her language isn’t satisfying. I bought it for a friend’s christmas gift but I accidentally waterlogged it on the way home from the used bookstore. So I think I’ll have to give my friend something else. Two stars for her obvious dedication to her craft, it might just be my inability to connect with it.

[Britney Hafen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of the poems in this book!

my top 2 favorite short ones were.

"The road was lit with moon and stars- and high beams from some asshole's car"

and

"just so- Jesus- raps- he -doesn't weary- Eminem and Jay Z are understandably leery."

[Don Conway-Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful, sassy, open-hearted, sarcastic poetry.