A poem by Northwestern State University Professor of English Julie Kane, Used Book, will be read on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac Tuesday, Dec. 6. This is the second time Kane’s work has been featured on the NPR show. Particle Physics from Kane’s book Jazz Funeral was read on the program in 2009.

The Writer’s Almanac is hosted by Garrison Keillor, who is also host of A Prairie Home Companion, and is broadcast in northwest and central Louisiana on Red River Radio stations KDAQ-FM (89.9) in Shreveport and KLSA-FM in Alexandria (90.7) at 9 a.m.

Used Book is a sonnet Kane wrote about finding a signed copy of a book of her poetry in a used bookstore.

“It’s a cheerful sonnet until the last two lines,” said Kane. “I pick it up, look at the dedication page and see who has sold the book back.”

Used Book was a winner of the Open Poetry Sonnet Competition, a competition sponsored by the United Kingdom-based Open Poetry Ltd.

Kane is serving a two-year term as Louisiana poet laureate. She won the Donald Justice Poetry Prize for Jazz Funeral. A former Fulbright Scholar, Kane was a winner of the National Poetry Series Open Competition for her book Rhythm & Booze. She was a finalist for one of the major prizes in American poetry, The Poets’ Prize for the Best Collection of American Poetry, and a judge for the 2005 National Book Award in Poetry. Northwestern honored her with the 2004 Mildred Hart Bailey Research Award.

The Writer’s Almanac is a daily radio program in which Keillor presents a list of cultural events and anniversaries, many associated with literary figures, then ends with the poetry reading. The program is broadcast to nearly 400 public radio stations around the country. The program audio is also streamed and podcast from and archived at writersalmanac.publicradio.org and may be streamed or archived on station websites.