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Leonard
Cohen sang “They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way
forever” and here Jude Neale is leaning in her quest for love, leaning
into light, and “into the dark” through memory, through dreams and the
substance of ordinary things. She calls for tenderness to birth love and
kindness as she lets a river of words answer.
~ Daniel Scott, author of Aftertime, current Artistic Director
of Planet Earth Poetry and retired academic
Jude Neale here lifts up the whole human heart and shows us how heavy
it is with grief, pain, love, and joy. These poems are like facets of
a gem, showing the contours of girlhood, womanhood, and elder matriarchy,
clear and true.
~ Kevin Solez, editor of Pandemic Poems (Kendall Hunt Publishing,
2020), Teaching Assistant Professor of Classics at Memorial University
of Newfoundland
Jude Neale’s poems are full of questions that make us lean closer in
to answer. They speak of love with a wisdom gathered from childhood through
half-opened eyelids in the dusk. These poems are generous; they toss up
the scenes of a life and offer them like food. And fearless in their selection.
This is her gift: the poet’s eye, the image paired with the sound that
rings for years. She always finds the one small door that will open me
on any particular day. Then, tell me, she asks, what did you see?
~ Ursula Vaira is the author of a new poetry collection, And See What
Happens (Caitlin Press). She is the founder and publisher of Leaf
Press, now in hiatus, and the managing editor of WordWorks, the magazine
of the Federation of BC Writers
Jude Neale is a Canadian poet, mentor, educator, opera singer and spoken
word performer. She has published eight collections of poetry, including
A Quiet Coming of Light (Leaf Press, 2014), Splendid in its
Silence, which won the SPM Publications (London) Poetry Book Competition
and was published there in April 2017, Cantata in Two Voices
(Ekstasis Editions, 2018, with Bonnie Nish), A Blooming (Ekstasis
Editions, 2019), and Impromptu (Ekstasis Editions, 2020). She
has been a winner in competitions featuring flash fiction and short stories
and was a finalist for The Pat Lowther award. Her poetry was finalist
for the Gregory O'Donoghue Poetry Prize in Ireland. Jude has collaborated
with many artists, including, violist and composer, Thomas RL Beckman
and the Prince George Symphony Orchestra and the visual artist Jane Kenyon
at their textile/poetry installation in June and July, 2021, at the Hearth
Gallery. Jude believes that her writing should move, elevate, and illuminate.
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