"Cane" is structured in three parts. The first third of the book is devoted to the black experience in the Southern farmland. The second part of "Cane" is more urban and concerned with Northern life. The conclusion of the work is a prose piece entitled "Kabnis." People would call Toomer's "Cane" a mysterious brand of Southern psychological realism that has been matched only in the best work of William Faulkner. Toomer is the first poet to unite folk culture and the elite culture of the white avant-garde.