Jude Neale
Neale has flowing gray hair styled in soft waves. She is wearing a pink tank top and a gold pendant in the form of a flower with dangling petals. The backdrop is blurred.
Biography
Jude Neale is an award-winning poet, opera singer, and mentor with thirteen poetry collections, including her latest, The Girl in the Box. Her book A Quiet Coming of Light was a finalist for the League of Canadian Poets Pat Lowther Award, and Splendid in its Silence was published in the UK after winning a prestigious competition. Her poem Blue Bowl was a finalist for the Irish Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Award, and Emptiness in the Garden was selected by British Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion for the Channel Island buses. Known for her bold collaborations, Jude fuses poetry with visual and musical arts to create transformative, boundary-pushing writing.
Poetics Statement
“My work explores survival, identity, and reclamation, drawing from personal experience to engage with broader themes of healing and empowerment. In poetry collections like The Girl in the Box, Only the Fallen Can See, and Inside the Pearl, I navigate the delicate balance between fragility and resilience, capturing the struggle to define oneself in the face of trauma and societal expectation. These works move through pain, loss, and mental illness with a constant thread of hope and renewal.
Nature and memory are central to my creative process, connecting the inner landscape to the outer world. A Quiet Coming of Light and The Perfect Word Collapses further explore these intersections—seeking clarity amidst chaos and beauty in brokenness.
My language strives to transform deeply personal moments into universal experiences.
Through teaching and collaboration, I continue to extend my exploration of human emotion, inviting others to reflect on their own journeys of healing.
Ultimately, I view writing as a means of transformation, offering a voice to those who, like myself, have found solace and strength in the act of creation. My art seeks to embrace complexity and witness the power of words to heal.”
Sample of Poet's Work
1. The Naming
The flight of light transforms
the rainforest into a riot
of greens and magentas.
It shimmers over the path
and ignites the sky
with its rainbowed sweep.
It dusts the earth
with a dazzling
white glaze,
and colours explode
over the verdant forest floor.
Tracing the giant trees
life giving force,
the landscape is named
and illuminated,
in this panoply
of shadow and form.
I am lifted by exultation
and become one
with this slim wedge
of transcendence
pouring like a river
into me.
2.
carrying light
in the blackness I struck
a match a lone spark
illuminated all I couldn’t see
i had forgotten the wonder
written across the obsidian sky
or the sound of your breath
rocking my worries to sleep
through this december night
i have gathered you to my breast
like a clutch of snowdrops
shining white and small
against the infinite band of velvet stretched taut above
us holding our love
on the glittering blade
of a knife
3.
There’s always a glimmer
Of hope, then there isn’t.
There is only time
For giving up, giving over.
And when your heart calls
No to the hard backed night—
Will you raise the white flag,
Or dance with the angels?
For there is always a glimmer
Of hope, then there isn’t.
4.Fused
My scent mingles with yours
And my love of breath rises and falls
Against the gentle tide
Of your heartbeat
How can I feel such peace
In the squall that spreads
Its icy fingers over the land?
Your hand cups my head
And I lean into the safety
Of you that has come
After thirty years
Of gain
And loss
Tendrils of your love
Fill the hollow places
Of my bird boned loneliness
Once I didn’t know
it could be this way
I thought love was something shiny
And not this burnished light
That joins us like steel
