It started with the metallic sound of a tin spoon scraping over a dish and the feeling of being restless and tethered at the same time. Over a period of 50 hours, Jude Neale wrote and edited her poem Blue Bowl and submitted it for the 2012 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize in Cork, Ireland. She said, "I entered it on November 30 and, two weeks later, they phoned me and said that I was short-listed." The poem ranked seventh and will be included in an anthology to be published in March.
Neale recalls, "I saw the call for submission online and thought that Irish writers would probably like my stuff because it is very lyrical." Neale said that Blue Bowl took her longer than the average of 30 to 40 hours she usually spends on a poem. She said, "This poem took me 50 hours to write. It started out with 400 words and now it has 90."
"I work completely in images," Neale said. "I start with a line, just a couple of words. For Blue Bowl, that was a tin spoon." She said when she closes her eyes and imagines a feeling, she always comes up with an image. "I sit down with the intention to work. I write between 11 at night and 5 in the morning. It is black and still in the night," she says. "There are no distractions, none." She adds that all that can be heard is her voice coming out of the computer room. She explains, "I talk my poems into existence. I need to hear the rhythm and the cadence." She admits that this process might have something to do with her background as a singer.
"It's an intuitive process," Neale explains. "I read out the lines and know 'this doesn't have the right syllable count or this is too glottal.'"
To her, the editing process reflects her understanding that poetry is "an oral tradition. It is made to be spoken and listened to."
The words on the page become powerful when they are spoken, Neale says. She has recorded some of her work with Bowen musician Teun Schut; and cellist Corbin Keep turned two of her poems into songs. Neale also enjoys readings. She said, "I've done 36 readings since my book [Only the Fallen Can See] came out." The poetry volume addresses the issue of bipolar illness and Neal says the topic finds wide resonance. She said, "A lot of people come up to me after the readings and say, 'I'm just like that,' or 'I feel depressed sometimes.'"
Neale says that the form of poetry was a perfect medium for a subject like mental illness. She explained, "The subtleties of language are exquisite in poetry. And the label of the book helped people become aware of it."
The book ties in with what Neale is trying to achieve. "I want to have an impact on the world," she said. "I want to affect one person at the time whether I am singing or teaching or writing. I want to make a change, to help people get a different perspective." And she believes that this can be done with words.
Neale used to work as a teacher but is now retired. There are a lot of parallels between the way she writes and the way she taught creative writing. She explained, "[My students] were used to creating poetry from the moment they entered the classroom. And they knew that I didn't tolerate pretty words." Neal admits that her students sometimes called her "slasher" because of how she wielded the red pen. And she is much more ruthless when it comes to editing her own poetry. This approach is part of what has earned her the award. Patrick Cotter, judge of the 2012 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize, put it this way, "Neale's Blue Bowl is an affecting love poem without bathos or discordant music, without any of the time-worn clichés of love-speak."
Neale's husband, Paul Hooson, is also welcome to pick up the red pen. Neale says, "He critiques the poems and gives me advice on what doesn't work well and where I need more of a punch. I have 20 or 30 versions of each poem - I keep them in case there is a line that I like." Neale credits Elisabeth Harvor, whom she has worked with since 2006, for teaching her how to edit her own writing.
Neale has published two books, Only the Fallen Can See (Leaf Press, 2011) and The Perfect Word Collapses. She said, "There are 500 poems on my computer and I have the next book ready. It is called A Quiet Coming of Light."
"Now that I've moved away from depression, I'm working on a series of funny poems," Neale says. She adds that she has also written poetry about marriage and she is constantly looking for opportunities to publish. She said, "I have a list of publishers whom I keep informed. It's a full time job to send stuff out." And she is glad to have access to online databases where she found the call for submission in Ireland. She said, "It's the first time I'm published overseas. When they called me, they said, 'you should feel quite chuffed.'
"So I am."
