Baton Rouge, La.: LSU Press, October 2006

"Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig," Jane Gentry's collection of poems, captures the essence of a life over a 10-year period.  Her previous books include "A Garden in Kentucky (1995)," also published by LSU Press, and a chapbook, "A Year in Kentucky (2005)," published by Press 817.  Both of her collections were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Many of the poems in "Portrait" grow out of perceptions of everyday happenings, with subjects ranging from hanging clothes on a line to taking a walk in a cemetery, from reading in a garden to shopping in a Sam's Club. Gentry invites her readers to embrace the honesty of her feelings and the depth of her attention to the world around her. Through her imaginative transformation of experience and the strength of her words and images, she encourages us to keep our eyes open at all times and to embrace life and what it offers.

Jane Gentry is a professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. She earned her master's degree from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has received the University of Kentucky Alumni Association's Great Teacher Award, has received two Al Smith Fellowships, and fellowships at Yaddo and at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She was also named Kentucky Poet Laureate in 2007.