David Judge

A Sense of Place, by David Judge, gives the reader exactly what it promises: a sense of a life grounded in various parts of Australia, each evoked by stories told in rhyme and metre.

Judge is a master of his craft. His stories transport the reader to whatever place he happens to be – and there are a multitude of them, all illustrating different aspects of Australian life, all told in eminently readable yarns. The poems flow around the reader as a silken scarf, interspersed with photographs and images to illustrate the ocean of words.

But this is not indulgent nostalgia. These verses range over myriad topics, locations, and issues of concern, from Kokoda to Rugby League, politics to people. They tell of a man who, like an octopus, has changed the shape of his life many times.

Some poems are whales, rising and falling gently as they migrate to warmer waters. The Painting: His eyes were as bright as the desert at night/where the heavens would sparkle and glow.

Other poems are small crabs, that rush and scuttle and leave a sense of wonder in their wake, eg. Rafting the Watut River, where Elkhorns cling like sucking leeches and boulders forming liquid caves conjure the action. Still others are like dolphins, with an impish sense of humour. For instance, in The Snowy Mountains Surfie, we’re primed for humour from the moment we read the title.

Judge’s metre is pleasing to the ear: words such as Gondwanaland, Jurassic, kaleidoscopic, Terra Nullius and Namatjira flow in metrical precision from his pen – and that’s just in the opening poem. A Land Down Under also contains this little gem: Success is like a sapling that gets stronger as it grows.

It has to be said that not all these poems have impeccable metre: in a generous gesture, the poet includes some of his early work, so the reader can see the development of style and skill that evolves throughout the book.

Judge acknowledges that the sense of place he feels comes via land that has been occupied for more than 60,000 years.

In the award-winning poem, I Am Who They Have Been, he writes, I recognise my forebears’ crimes, committed in those brutal times. Further in the same poem he describes war as like a dark demented dream that reappears as Satan’s meme.

These lines helped the poem take out the Contemporary Poetry Prize at the Banjo Paterson Writing Awards 2022. This award elevates it to the rarefied air of rhyming ballads to have won a contemporary poetry award. Judge achieved that feat at the Orange Readers and Writers Festival not once, but twice. This verse gives the flavour of his 2024 winner, Extracted or Polluted or Extinct:

Where is the will from those who lead to understand the things we need/ beyond the next electoral debate?/ to think outside the mundane square and have the fortitude to dare/to make amends before it is too late.

When it comes to prizes, Judge is like wheat ripening in the paddock, gradually turning golden. In April 2025 he demonstrated his versatility at the Victorian Bush Poetry Championships, held as part of the Man from Snowy River Festival at Corryong. Rivers won the Serious Written section and Imagine placed second in the Humorous. The poet’s trophy cabinet now boasts the Silver Brumby Award for the overall winner, as well as a special Silver Swagman statue from Winton.

Helpfully, this book includes a discussion on writing quality rhymed and metred verse, to guide the novice on their way. It’s probably harder than you think!

David Judge’s opus magnum, A Sense of Place, lights the way.