The CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry: Judges 2006

Judith Rodriguez has published numerous volumes of poetry and won many literary awards. Her books include Nu-Plastik Fanfare Red, Mudcrab at Gambaro's and Witch Heart. She has taught writing both in Australia and internationally and been a great advocate for Australian writers and writing. In 1994 she was awarded an Order of Australia for services to literature.

Rodney Hall has twice won the Miles Franklin Award, for Just Relations in 1982 and The Grisly Wife in 1994. He has been three times nominated for the Booker Prize, and Captivity Captive was the winner of the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 1989. His books are available in half a dozen translations, as well as English editions in the UK and USA.

Emma Lew was born in Victoria and completed an Arts degree at Melbourne University in 1986. She has worked as a deckhand, shop assistant, proof-reader, receptionist and clerical assistant. She began writing poems in 1986. Her first book of poetry, The Wild Reply, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Prize, was co-winner of The Age Book of the Year and won the Dame Mary Gilmore prize for 1997. It was also runner-up for the Anne Elder Prize. Her second book of poetry, Anything the Landlord Touches (Giramondo, 2002) won the Judith Wright Calanthe Poetry Prize and the Victorian Premier’s C.J. Dennis Prize for Poetry.