An extraordinary voice
Jack Thorne
remember / tidal volume is estimated based on // what’s left in the lung as it closes / remember love is based on tides / as they come in closer
Jamie Hale writes the poetry of survival. They are bold in their naming and lyrical in their honouring.
-Raymond Antrobus
As the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, Jamie was warned by the doctor that due to their underlying health they would not be a priority for critical care treatment. Using the compressed form of a sonnet, they kept rewriting and re-experiencing different voices and identities to explore what it means to face one’s mortality so directly, suddenly, and unexpectedly.
This work became a pamphlet, Shield, following Jamie through the grief of facing death while newly married, and into a place of resilience, resistance, and a commitment to creation against mortality.
i’d rather die / as i’ve lived as i’ve lived filled with love and / i’d rather die fierce as myself
These are arresting, heart-stopping poems lit with a rare intensity. Hale’s poems don’t pull any punches, they explore what it is to live in a body and on the way touch the centre of the fragility deep inside all of us. Humane poems that will make you ache
Mona Arshi
Shield was reviewed in numerous places, including Sphinx and London Grip, and featured in a Poetry Society Perspective by Hannah Hodgeson
With its waves of fearlessness, and the speaker’s desperate attempt to be seen as themselves, the sonnet punches the reader to the ground
Hannah Hodgeson – Poetry Society
A young, fierce, articulate, inspired individual. […] This is a poet with something to say and they’re saying it with art, craft, skill and raw shock.
Helena Nelson – Sphinx
A tribute to a spirit of determination
Emma Lee – London Grip