Interview With Jude Neale

I had the great pleasure of being able to interview the very prolific poet, Jude Neale, who is on the cusp of publishing And Now There Is Me.

Q: You have an impressive body of work with over ten books of poetry. How many books have you published?

I have published fourteen books to date, with two more currently awaiting decisions from publishers, including Nightwood Editions. I also have two additional manuscripts on my desk at home. So the body of work keeps growing, often without my even noticing until someone counts it for me.

Q: How long have you been writing?

I began writing at five. By eight I had won the CBC Youth Poetry Award for a poem about the train journey to Blue River. Writing has always been a way of making sense of the world, even before I fully understood that was what I was doing.

Q: Did you start by writing poetry, or did you start with other work?

Poetry was my first language. Later I studied fiction with Jack Hodgins and found joy in the long form, but poetry remained the anchor. I also trained as an opera singer, and that shaped me in profound ways. Cadence and breath became the scaffolding for every line I wrote. Even my prose carries a pulse that comes from music.

Q: Living in what many would describe as one of the most beautiful places on Earth, how much has nature inspired your work?

Bowen Island is woven through my work. The cedars, the mist lifting from the inlet, the way light breaks across Tunstall Bay. I do not simply use landscape as backdrop. It enters the poems the way breath enters the body. My grandfather recited Robert Service to us in the Rockies using a different voice for every character. That early sense of wilderness and theatre shaped my imagination. Nature taught me reverence and scale. Bowen taught me quiet and repetition. Together they formed my listening.

Q: Which poets who came before you have inspired your work?

Sylvia Plath was the first poet I revered. Her precision and emotional voltage electrified me. Later I grew to love the clarity of Jane Kenyon, the music of Dylan Thomas, and the inventive wildness of e e cummings. These voices each showed me that vulnerability and craft can be companions rather than adversaries.

Q: Are there any poets, current or past, who continue to inspire or challenge you?

Always. Dylan Thomas continues to remind me that language must carry breath and musicality. Jane Kenyon shows me the courage of restraint. Contemporary poets often push me to reconsider form and silence and the use of white space as meaning. I am challenged constantly. That is part of the gift of poetry.

Q: Your latest work, “And Now There Is Me,” has each poem followed by a companion piece of poetic prose. As the reader, I found myself really tuning in to the work in a way that I would have previously thought impossible. I’m curious why your book is written out this way. What does it offer the reader and what does it do for the message?

The pairing allows the poem to speak in its distilled voice while the prose opens that voice into narrative, memory, or emotional counterpoint. Poetry gives the pulse. Prose gives the body around it. I wanted readers to experience a kind of duet. It invites closer attention, a deep tuning of the ear. Many readers have told me they read more slowly than they expected to, that they felt immersed in each pairing as if stepping into two rooms lit by the same lamp.

Q: What aspects of your personal life have shaped “And Now There Is Me” along with your previous books of poetry?

I was born a twin and arrived far too early. Much of my work reckons with survival, identity, and the quiet threads that bind a family. I carry memories of growing up in the wilderness, of a mother who baked without a gauge on the stove, of a father who hauled lake water to boil diapers for two preemies. I also carry the voices of my children and grandchildren, my decades as a teacher, and the interior shifts that come with loving, losing, forgiving, and continuing. All of these layers rise behind the poems whether I intend them to or not.

Q: What is unique about “And Now There Is Me” compared to your previous books?

This is the first time I have paired poetry with poetic prose throughout an entire manuscript. It is also my most intimate book. The work does not aim for confession but for truth told through image and cadence. Being a twin shaped my understanding of self, and this book emerges from the moment of recognizing myself alone but not diminished. It is a biography built from glimpses rather than chronology.

Q: Where and when should readers look for “And Now There Is Me”?

The manuscript is currently in queue with Nightwood Editions. Once it moves into their production schedule, readers will be able to find it through bookstores, festivals, and online retailers. Nightwood has a long history of championing Canadian poets, and I hope this book will find a home there.

Q: Is there anything else that you would like to mention about your current, past, or future work?

Yes. I am currently collaborating with artist Nick Jennings on a new project called Written in the Same Breath. I send him my photographs and poems, and he responds with paintings that transform the original impulse into something luminous. It is a conversation across mediums and a reminder that art is rarely solitary. I am also working on Into the Deep, drawn from my father’s naval diaries through the Arctic convoys and D Day. Each project asks something different of me, and I am grateful for the questions they keep opening.