"What struck me in first reading the poetry of Jo Slade, partly inspired by the knowledge that she is a painter, but also by the freshness and immediacy of her poetic technique, is the degree to which her writing draws on that sister art. There are vivid splashes of colour in her poems...bloodred to black.... Akin to the texture of paint on canvas, there is the vivid and sensual tactility of Jo Slade's lines and language".