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In the Shadows of Service moves through the silences and echoes of a life spent in public safety, where duty and humanity often meet in uneasy balance. Drawing on decades within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Cynthia Hamilton Urquhart writes from the intersection of courage, vulnerability, and recovery. Her poems move between stillness and motion, shifting visually and rhythmically to reflect the instability of memory, the fracture of trauma, and the slow emergence of hope. This collection gives voice to the private griefs and quiet triumphs of First Responders, inviting readers to look beyond the uniform to the person within. With clarity and compassion, Urquhart reveals that even in the heaviest shadows, the act of naming becomes a form of light.
“Cynthia Hamilton Urquhart’s debut poetry collection, In the Shadows of Service, is an anthem for what’s left unfinished in the line of duty: ‘the lost innocence of a child / the fatal accidents / the violence / the suffering / the grief.’ Urquhart’s collection provides a unique look at PTSD from the perspective of law enforcement, a perspective that she knows well from her 25 years of service with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Amidst a chorus of sobs and sirens, and the babble of broken families, Urquhart’s poetry seeks a return to a place ‘where a kind smile greets you from a stranger / where laughter drifts from playgrounds / where sunlight settles gently on my cheeks.’ In the Shadows of Service moves in the direction of hope and uplift, honoring the lives and sacrifices of First Responders everywhere. Urquhart’s voice is a welcome addition to the chorus of poets braiding trauma and survival into song.”
— Dante Di Stefano, author of The Widowing Radiance and Midwhistle
The poems in Cynthia Hamilton Urquhart’s In the Shadows of Service are unique and uniquely moving. No other contemporary writer so thoroughly and surprisingly explores police work. With emotional intensity and verbal precision, Urquhart’s lines and sentences establish connections between self and other amidst the most challenging circumstances. These are necessary and powerful poems.
— Peter Campion, author of Radical as Reality: Form and Freedom in American Poetry
“Cynthia Hamilton Urquhart’s In the Shadows of Service is a stunning literary debriefing by a working cop. It lends indispensable poetic voice and witness to the considerable cadres among us who, in the task of furthering civilization, have worked ‘under shadow’: confronting hopeless situations on a daily basis; taking on the thankless, if at times exhilarating, jobs.
Police-work may lend this collection its viewfinder. But Urquhart is also a master of the short line, couched in the primal words of our interior lives. These often appear in clusters, and she is capable of making them sing in unanticipated rhymes and echoes. Her radical, all-out typography is a master class in the interior polyphonies and other special effects embedded in the contemporary keyboard. Her poetic mastery leaves its stamp on every page. It does full justice to the exertions and tribulations to which her persona bears witness—and then some.
Poetryworld is disproportionately broadened and enriched—aesthetically and ethically—by the publication of In the Shadows of Service. This collection is certain to draw notice.”
— Henry Sussman, author of Screen Memories (2025) and Polaroids of Turbulence (2024)
Cynthia Hamilton Urquhart is a writer, speaker, and retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer whose work is shaped by more than 25 years of service and a life lived inside the First Responder world. Her perspective deepened when she and her husband, also a First Responder, were diagnosed with PTSD within months of each other, a shared journey that reshaped her understanding of trauma, healing, and the unspoken weight carried by those who serve.
In the Shadows of Service, her first collection of poetry, is her most personal work to date. All of the poems in this collection are rooted in Cynthia’s own years on the front lines, reflecting the echoes of calls answered, moments carried, and the emotional truths that remain long after the work is done. The book emerges from the same place that inspired her to found A First Responder Voice, an initiative dedicated to illuminating the realities of First Responders and their families and encouraging those who serve to find the courage to care for themselves.
Cynthia is also the author of A First Responder Voice: Courage in the First Step (new edition releasing 2026), and a contributing author to the Amazon #1 best-selling anthology Women of Inspiration–Women Driving Change.
Her advocacy and contributions have been recognized with the Universal Women’s Network 2019 Woman of Inspiration–Unsung Hero Award, the RCMP Long Service Award, and the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal.
She lives in Calgary, Alberta, with her husband and their two dogs, Ruby and Reggie. She and her husband love spending time in the great outdoors, with their children and grandchildren, and both continue to serve their communities.
More about her work can be found at afirstrespondervoice.com or @afirstrespondervoice on Instagram.
Book Information:
· Paperback: 70 pages
· Binding: Perfect-Bound
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-532-8
$18
