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5.5 x 8.5 inches | 92 pp | 978-1-926655-68-0 | $17.00

A Quiet Coming of Light - A Poetic Memoir

by Jude Neale

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PAT LOWTHER AWARD

Jude Neale's poems are about surviving childhood, family relationships, the complexities of loss or relief that are felt when love leaves only a tracing of beautiful silver scars. She writes of wisdom and frailty, hope as signified by those "bright copper pennies dropped from the sun."

Praise for Jude Neale's poetry:

"A mixture of formal control and emotional weight ... I especially liked the simplicity (always much harder to achieve than it appears)."
  –Sir Andrew Motion, Britain's Poet Laureate, on "Still Life."

"Amidst the marks and scars, is the strength of the human spirit to find humour, irony, and beauty in it all. Humour – that sure sign that some kind of healing has happened."
  –Daniela Elza, author of milk tooth bane bone.

"What an absolutely stunning poem. So delicately wrought. No bathos or sentimentality – difficult to achieve in a love poem."  –Patrick Cotter, judge of Gregory O'Donoghue              International Poetry Prize, on "Blue Bowl."

Her web address is judeneale.com

Review Excerpts

"When I read A Quiet Coming of Light I found myself thinking that if author Jude Neale loves you, she loves you with the deepest and purest of loves.” Read the complete review by Norma Dunning in Arc Poetry Magazine.

"Jude's trademarks are a tension between delicacy and power, between obliqueness and honesty, between unmawkish sorrow and ironic humour at her own expense. (Check out the leopard-print lingerie poem.)" Read the review by Susanna Braund in The Bowen Island Undercurrent here.

Jude Neale was shortlisted for the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize (Ireland), The International Poetic Republic Poetry Prize (UK), The Mary Chalmers Smith Poetry Prize (UK), The Wenlock International Poetry Prize (UK), and The Royal City short story and poem contest where she placed second in both categories. Her book Only the Fallen Can See was long-listed for the Canadian ReLit Award.

Photograph of Jude Neale by Paul Hooson