Ali Alizadeh

Paul Kane is the Professor of English and Co-Associate Chair of English at Vassar College in the Hudson Valley, 75 miles north of New York City. In addition to being a prolific poet and scholar of American literature, he is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Australian poetry. He studied at the University of Melbourne as a Fulbright Scholar to Australia in 1984-85, and has, since 2002, served as Artistic Director of the annual Mildura Writers Festival. He is also the poetry editor of Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature, and was recently named General Editor of the Braziller Series of Australian Poets. I caught up with Kane over a couple of coffees in Melbourne recently, and the following interview was the result of their conversation.