To be. That is the problem of the exile, of all those who suddenly find themselves freed from secular bonds due to circumstances that shatter people's world and consciousness. To be freed means to have to reconstruct and seek for oneself a sense of balance in a new country, new family, and new relationships. The result is a brief and magnificent body of writing.

Jean Migrenne (June Shenfield's translator)
Translated from the French by Dr Dominique Hecq.

June's work dealt with powerful evocations of the human condition and explored intense areas of emotional and physical pain. This intensity was tempered by strong intimations of hope, survival and equilibrium. June was committed to poetry as a vocal medium and prioritised the voice as an instrument in the delivery of her work. She was also daring in her experimental approach to writing.

"June Shenfield's poems could be compared to some of the more disturbing modern paintings that express apprehension, disgust and despair. These poems, once brought to life through recital and performance may be the only way the artist has at her disposal to deaden the pain, which, in turn, may be a sign that life is still worth living "

Yehudah Svoray

After Ibsen I sit up drinking coffee While you type great hunks of thesis in the next room. The spasmodic metal clanking, A sandman, a great bird of night Singing me softly to sleep. A lullaby, assuring me that life goes on in the darkness. Only it's not dark! The hall light Hurting my eyes. My blood pulses from too much coffee Not enough to eat and everlasting essays. Frustration walks you about like The sleepwalker. Sleeping out your existence in a cold room Battering away. If you walked out Under a car would you wake? You type X's over the errors and start again. Lulling me into your sleep, enticing me. Calling me with a metal birdsong, Only to throw sand in my eyes. Spelling aloud, I write longhand. Each letter flows onto the next. No clear typeface with X's, only a line Deep and strong scratching out unwanted waste. While you frantically keep on, To beat dawn, to keep night eternal And dark, with only a semblance of a virile mating call, Locked in your clanking, bird without mate. June Shenfield