Jude Neale’s poetry is really getting around in Europe – literally.
The Bowen Island poet, vocalist and spoken word performer won a competition by the United Kingdom’s Poet Laureate this fall to have one of her poems published not in a book, but on a bus.
Her poem “Emptiness in the Garden” is now circulating across the UK’s Channel Islands on public transit, where it will be seen by approximately 100,000 travellers over the course of a year as a winner of the 2015 Guernsey Literary Prize.
The honour came with a tour where she read in London’s Covent Garden poetry house and in Amsterdam.
It’s the cap to a productive and hectic year for Neale. She produced four two-hour shows on Bowen Island this year, collaborating with dancer Sue-Lynn Seng, Vancouver’s poet laureate Rachel Rose and with jazz guitarist Teun Schut and bassist Ian Cameron, along with a concert in July in support of the library’s expansion project.
And 2016 looks to be just as busy for Neale. Her fourth book of poetry, Midsummer Bewilders the Dog Star, is due to come out, complete with a cover designed by local artist Janice Treleaven.
“She did this doodle on Facebook and I said, ‘That’s what I need!’,” says Neale.
The book will be her fourth, but her first published in the United States.
But before that comes out, she’ll be releasing a new CD – a performance of 10 selections from Midsummer Bewilders the Dogstar set to music by Vancouver violist Thomas Beckman – at the end of January, complete with a launch performance at the Gallery on Feb. 14.
The fact that Neale works with musicians is no accident – before her career in poetry she was a professional opera singer who studied at the Royal Opera in London.
“That really affects my poetry, that cadence.”
She made the transition from music to poetry because of her age – “I thought my voice isn’t going to last forever” – and hasn’t missed a beat, with recognition for her poetry in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States and Canada. Most recently, the Magpie International Poetry Competition informed her that one of her poems has been chosen as a finalist by Vancouver’s first poet laureate, George McWhirter.
She has also been published in the prestigious Boston Jewish Literary Journal three times.
“Somehow I’ve got it into their heads that I must be Jewish,” she says with a laugh.
Despite the change in focus, her singing also forms a critical part of all her performances and will be featured on the CD as well.
Sickened by what she called the “cutthroat lifestyle” of an artist’s life in Europe, came to Canada 30 years ago took up residence on Bowen and started teaching writing at Simon Fraser University, where she has been nominated for the Prime Minister’s Award.
“I came to Bowen for a short spell,” she says. I’m in the same rental house.”
