Someone Forgot to Tell the Fish

Hal Judge is a energetic, risk-taking poet who is formulating a unique poetics. It is fascinating to watch something poetically 'new' take shape, watch it break out of its borders and boundaries and travel through different registers of language and experience. There is something of the troubadour about Judge, but a fiercely pro-active one: a combination of thrash guitarist and folk singer. He challenges the reader, he challenges the world-at-large, and he challenges his own perceptions. He is surrounded by poetry and pulls the threads together. A poet worth watching closely.

Hal Judge is an emerging provocative writer from Canberra. His poems have been published in over 20 literary publications in Australia and overseas. His concrete poem Area Denial won the ACT Writers Centre Award in 2006.

He is also a versatile writer of short stories, plays and screenplays. Six of his experimental plays have been staged in Canberra and Sydney. His writing reflects a desire to experiment with a wide range of forms, technology, genres and themes.

He has performed poetry on ABC radio and at many venues around Australia. He has recited poetry in Sydney, Hobart, Launceston, Darwin, Canberra, Ubud, Jakarta and Palembang (Indonesia). Hal is an accomplished performance poet, twice winner of the Battle of the Bards in the ACT Writers Festival.

Hal has received grants from ArtsACT, Business ACT, Capital Arts Patrons Organisation, the Tasmanian Online Writers Residency and recently an AsiaLink professional development residency in Indonesia. The Canberra Times literature reviewers commented on Hal Judge s ability to cross-social boundaries and described his poetry as satirical, acerbic, highly successful .

He is currently studying a Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra and teaching poetry in jail.

Someone Forgot to Tell the Fish was Commended in IP Picks 2007.