GO TO MLC HOMEPAGE

FOOL FOR POETRY
INTERNATIONAL CHAPBOOK
COMPETITION 2018

Submit to Southword

ONLINE BOOKSTORE FEATURED TITLES

New Irish Voices
Poetry chapbooks by
Roisin Kelly & Paul McMahon

Liberty Walks Naked
by Maram al-Masri, trans. Theo Dorgan

Chapbooks by Fool for Poetry
Competition Winners 2018

Not in Heaven by Molly Minturn
Bog Arabic by Bernadette McCarthy

Richesses: Francophone Songwriter Poets
Edited and translated by Aidan Hayes

Munster Literature Centre

Create your badge

JUDE NEALE

Jude Neale was born three months premature in northern British Columbia, Canada. Jude has had a life-long struggle with bipolar illness, and in her book, Only the Fallen Can See (Leaf Press, 2011), she writes of despair or longing like a lover, a dangerous friend. She has taken the journals she kept during her long battle and whittled them down to their essence, bringing a rare and moving glimpse into the emotional ravages of mental illness. Jude has been published frequently in journals like The Antigonish Review, online magazines such as Monday’s poem and anthologies like the forthcoming Tri-City Anthology (Vancouver, Seattle, Portland). She is pleased to be shortlisted for the 2012 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize.

Blue Bowl

 

 

I like the way you wrap your hand round my fingers

 

so that I feel bird-boned and small.

 

I inhale you deeply

push past

shoals of lethargy.

 

You circle my shoulders

 

draw me close to your side

as a ribbon

holds hair.

 

I slipped a silver ring

into your pocket

 

intending to settle you down.

 

But sometimes when wind whips

the tops of the cedars

 

and the white dog howls on the stair

 

I scrape my tin spoon

on the blue china bowl

 

you hold

and tether me here.

 

©2012 Jude Neale

 

Author Links

Jude Neale home page

Neale reading her work at 'Poetry in the Park' (YouTube)

Interview with Neale on the World Poetry Cafe Radio Show (MP3, 55.39 MB)