[part of the April 2006 bookclub Poetry Double Feature]

Contemplative, beautiful, and sometimes haunting, the language in A Garden in Kentucky is deeply rooted in place, mortality, and the capturing of moments. Jane Gentry’s words sing with grief, acceptance, and an acute awareness of life. These poems meditate on their subjects—the sounds of a cricket in an elevator shaft, the emotional act of leaving a daughter at college, a glimpse of two people kissing in an alleyway—in precise yet inventive language that creates an intense, heartfelt experience.

Watch the program (Windows Media® or RealPlayer® format)

Blurbs from the book cover

Card catalog entry from the Library of Congress

Amazon.com information page

Barnes and Noble information page

Jane Gentry (Vance)

Video interview with bookclub host Bill Goodman (Windows Media® format; from March 2006)

Her Old Kentucky Home, a profile from the archives of CityBeat

Poetic professor to sign new work, an article from a September 1995 edition of the Kentucky Kernel, the campus newspaper at the University of Kentucky

Jane was a guest on our 2004 Christmas special, which featured the anthology A Kentucky Christmas. That book includes her poem Hunting for a Christmas Tree After Dark.