Cantata in Two Voices
poetry by Jude Neale and Bonnie Nish
“Poetry is just the evidence of life.If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
— Leonard Cohen
It has been a delight and challenge to weave our two poetic voices into a single book of poems. We took turns choosing the epigram and all subsequent responses to this trigger. We met in person only once and conceived and created each poem on the internet with one writer taking on the job of editor. We felt we needed to have a consistent eye to allow both voices to be heard in a unified form. As the work unfolded our voices began a dance that quickly turned closely around one another, unique but usually in sync – the final edits caught the spaces where we stepped too far away.
Because of the nature of the project we collaborated on all aspects of the writing. We set a goal to write a book in fifty days allowing for the fifty pages to complete our manuscript.
After intense and exhilarating exchange of ideas we are proud to introduce our work, Cantata in Two Voices. We hope you enjoy reading the dozens of epigrams by an international pantheon of poets. We both felt these were the key to inspiration and acted like an unwrapped gift, just waiting to be discovered.
This is a completely unique collection of poems, written by two experienced poets and based on the words of other writers.
We hope you are transformed in some small way by our collaborative collection, Cantata in Two Voices.
Jude Neale/Bonnie Nish