Poetry review – THE DINGO’S NOCTUARY: Kimberly K. Williams admires the commitment and passion behind this remarkable book by Judith Nangala Crispin
The Dingo’s Noctuary
Judith Nangala Crispin
Puncher and Wattmann
ISBN 9781923099715
$130
The Dingo’s Noctuary: An Illustrated Verse Novel, by Judith Nangala Crispin, is a book that is a universe unto itself. It is divided into poems, both lineated and prose-poems, and images, including art and maps. As in any universe, the parts work together to form a complex astounding whole that is greater than its parts.
There is no doubt that Crispin’s book, published in 2025, is the work of a lifetime. Recently, in 2026, it won the top honour for the ACT (Australian Capital Territory’s) book awards for all genres, the Marion Halligan Award, which, according to arts writer Helen Musa, ‘recognises a work demonstrating uniqueness and literary excellence that transcends genre.’ Indeed, ‘transcendent’ is one word to describe Crispin’s verse novel. Punctuating the poems are the most extraordinary images of Australian roadkill, which have been arranged, body after body, under low exposure across many hours, to transform into art. Many of the forms of the roadkill take on an ethereal quality and appear to be ascending under a night sky. In her work as an artist here, Crispin has given death new life, a type of resurrection.
This is the kind of book that is so rich and dense that a reader might only take in one or two poems and images in a sitting. Yet, every time the book is taken up again, the journey continues. The reader enters an otherworld, which is, in fact, mostly the Australian outback and other mainly rural places. These poems are grounded in place, in Country, wherein the vastness becomes as crucial to the character of the place as the places are themselves.
The book is part history lesson, part cultural lesson, part confessional. It is also Crispin’s personal search for identity, and the readers become privy to the journey. Page 12, which is the end of the ‘First Noctuary Entry,’ suggests to the reader how to understand the book’s form:
This journal will be a Noctuary, a record of things passing by night, the nocturnal
peregrinations of dingo, woman and starship at some remote intersection of Earth
and outer space.
The dingo is named Moon, and the starship is a motorcycle with a side car. While reading, one has the rare impression that the journey occurs at the metaphoric and literal levels simultaneously. That is part of the book’s subtle power.
Also part of its power is that its contemplation of division and separation, which is the very basis of identity. The book juxtaposes concepts—like First Nations and the effects of colonisation; what is living and dead, urban and rural, plastic and natural—which help form the idea that ultimately the book is about creating wholeness from parts, even when the parts are contradictory or not identifiable. Reality is challenged here: “Not everything wandering in the head” says the character Old Lily, “is a dream…” (17). Somehow all parts and strands come together into a single unnameable reality. In this reality, boundaries blur, and with the amelioration of separateness comes a new understanding of how we humans design our own limitations.
Interestingly, the first time I read through these poems, especially ones towards the end of the book, the old eco-spirit of an American prose writer named Ed Abbey was roused in my memory. Writing from the 1950s until his death in 1989, Abbey was a fierce protector of the American West at a time when its expanding road systems and the growing post-war middle-class was opening the western areas of the USA to tourists. In reaction, he’d write essays about the dangers of the desert, for example the Kissing Bug, which literally will suck the life out of any unsuspecting camper. Like an overprotective parent, he’d try to warn his readers away. Abbey, born and raised on the opposite side of the country in New York, was passionate about the land he’d come to love. Crispin’s writing conveys this same kind of passion, too, where it discusses ‘defend[ing] waterways, habitats and nests’ (247) as in the ‘Thirty-Ninth Noctuary Entry’. And her work in places contains similar types of warnings: ‘Everyone who comes here is summoned. Few enter this region of the Great Sandy Desert, and even fewer come out” (248). But there is humour in some of the observations: ‘You can’t show up in the outback dressed like Frida Kahlo in a campervan with climate / stickers on the back, and expect a welcome” (247). Like Abbey, Crispin is aware of the disastrous effects that humans have on the natural world. The book’s art images alone testify to it.
But what separates Crispin from Abbey, and makes her work more startling and generous than his, is that it’s feminine in its approach. Crispin is not separate from this place she and her words dwell in, nor are we as the readers. Indeed, we readers are interlopers. But somehow, because no one in this book appears to fit in the mainstream, we, too, are welcome along the way. Witness writing requires someone to witness, and to a degree, the readers are riding along in the side car with Moon.
Once readers find themselves inside this universe, the beauty of Crispin’s writing will hold them The writing is controlled. And this, too, separates her from Abbey, for despite the similarities between the two approaches, Crispin’s is a verse novel and not prose. As a poet, her ability to capture image sneaks up: ‘The sky’s blue darkens under folds of descending finches, / until it seems like night’ (248). Through language, this world materialises.
The Dingo’s Noctuary is thick, hardbound book – 280 pages of poetry and images, and then additional appendices. Besides the entries and art, the book contains maps, lists, flora and fauna, and enough information for readers to understand and relate to all that they encounter. In a world where so much text is available so quickly, through the internet, other technology, and overnight delivery, this book stands apart. It is not to be rushed, and clearly it was developed and made over an extended span of time. In addition, this book is for every kind of lover: lovers of the natural world, lovers of poetry, lovers of stories, lovers of art and image, lovers of interesting and quirky characters, lovers of animals. The reader may enter as one kind of lover and leave Crispin’s universe being another.
Finally, one mustn’t forget that the personal impetus behind this book, what brought it into being to begin with, is Crispin’s own search for her cultural identity, which she addresses in the Author’s Note, wherein she expresses gratitude to Warlpiri elders who welcomed her to Country despite her ‘murky ancestry’ (v). While reading this book, I have been left with the notion that Crispin’s search has taken her readers on a transformative journey. If she hadn’t had that driving sense of purpose fuelling her, we wouldn’t have this book, and what a tremendous loss that would be.
Sep 28 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Judith Nangala Crispin
Poetry review – THE DINGO’S NOCTUARY: Kimberly K. Williams admires the commitment and passion behind this remarkable book by Judith Nangala Crispin
The Dingo’s Noctuary
Judith Nangala Crispin
Puncher and Wattmann
ISBN 9781923099715
$130
The Dingo’s Noctuary: An Illustrated Verse Novel, by Judith Nangala Crispin, is a book that is a universe unto itself. It is divided into poems, both lineated and prose-poems, and images, including art and maps. As in any universe, the parts work together to form a complex astounding whole that is greater than its parts.
There is no doubt that Crispin’s book, published in 2025, is the work of a lifetime. Recently, in 2026, it won the top honour for the ACT (Australian Capital Territory’s) book awards for all genres, the Marion Halligan Award, which, according to arts writer Helen Musa, ‘recognises a work demonstrating uniqueness and literary excellence that transcends genre.’ Indeed, ‘transcendent’ is one word to describe Crispin’s verse novel. Punctuating the poems are the most extraordinary images of Australian roadkill, which have been arranged, body after body, under low exposure across many hours, to transform into art. Many of the forms of the roadkill take on an ethereal quality and appear to be ascending under a night sky. In her work as an artist here, Crispin has given death new life, a type of resurrection.
This is the kind of book that is so rich and dense that a reader might only take in one or two poems and images in a sitting. Yet, every time the book is taken up again, the journey continues. The reader enters an otherworld, which is, in fact, mostly the Australian outback and other mainly rural places. These poems are grounded in place, in Country, wherein the vastness becomes as crucial to the character of the place as the places are themselves.
The book is part history lesson, part cultural lesson, part confessional. It is also Crispin’s personal search for identity, and the readers become privy to the journey. Page 12, which is the end of the ‘First Noctuary Entry,’ suggests to the reader how to understand the book’s form:
This journal will be a Noctuary, a record of things passing by night, the nocturnal
peregrinations of dingo, woman and starship at some remote intersection of Earth
and outer space.
The dingo is named Moon, and the starship is a motorcycle with a side car. While reading, one has the rare impression that the journey occurs at the metaphoric and literal levels simultaneously. That is part of the book’s subtle power.
Also part of its power is that its contemplation of division and separation, which is the very basis of identity. The book juxtaposes concepts—like First Nations and the effects of colonisation; what is living and dead, urban and rural, plastic and natural—which help form the idea that ultimately the book is about creating wholeness from parts, even when the parts are contradictory or not identifiable. Reality is challenged here: “Not everything wandering in the head” says the character Old Lily, “is a dream…” (17). Somehow all parts and strands come together into a single unnameable reality. In this reality, boundaries blur, and with the amelioration of separateness comes a new understanding of how we humans design our own limitations.
Interestingly, the first time I read through these poems, especially ones towards the end of the book, the old eco-spirit of an American prose writer named Ed Abbey was roused in my memory. Writing from the 1950s until his death in 1989, Abbey was a fierce protector of the American West at a time when its expanding road systems and the growing post-war middle-class was opening the western areas of the USA to tourists. In reaction, he’d write essays about the dangers of the desert, for example the Kissing Bug, which literally will suck the life out of any unsuspecting camper. Like an overprotective parent, he’d try to warn his readers away. Abbey, born and raised on the opposite side of the country in New York, was passionate about the land he’d come to love. Crispin’s writing conveys this same kind of passion, too, where it discusses ‘defend[ing] waterways, habitats and nests’ (247) as in the ‘Thirty-Ninth Noctuary Entry’. And her work in places contains similar types of warnings: ‘Everyone who comes here is summoned. Few enter this region of the Great Sandy Desert, and even fewer come out” (248). But there is humour in some of the observations: ‘You can’t show up in the outback dressed like Frida Kahlo in a campervan with climate / stickers on the back, and expect a welcome” (247). Like Abbey, Crispin is aware of the disastrous effects that humans have on the natural world. The book’s art images alone testify to it.
But what separates Crispin from Abbey, and makes her work more startling and generous than his, is that it’s feminine in its approach. Crispin is not separate from this place she and her words dwell in, nor are we as the readers. Indeed, we readers are interlopers. But somehow, because no one in this book appears to fit in the mainstream, we, too, are welcome along the way. Witness writing requires someone to witness, and to a degree, the readers are riding along in the side car with Moon.
Once readers find themselves inside this universe, the beauty of Crispin’s writing will hold them The writing is controlled. And this, too, separates her from Abbey, for despite the similarities between the two approaches, Crispin’s is a verse novel and not prose. As a poet, her ability to capture image sneaks up: ‘The sky’s blue darkens under folds of descending finches, / until it seems like night’ (248). Through language, this world materialises.
The Dingo’s Noctuary is thick, hardbound book – 280 pages of poetry and images, and then additional appendices. Besides the entries and art, the book contains maps, lists, flora and fauna, and enough information for readers to understand and relate to all that they encounter. In a world where so much text is available so quickly, through the internet, other technology, and overnight delivery, this book stands apart. It is not to be rushed, and clearly it was developed and made over an extended span of time. In addition, this book is for every kind of lover: lovers of the natural world, lovers of poetry, lovers of stories, lovers of art and image, lovers of interesting and quirky characters, lovers of animals. The reader may enter as one kind of lover and leave Crispin’s universe being another.
Finally, one mustn’t forget that the personal impetus behind this book, what brought it into being to begin with, is Crispin’s own search for her cultural identity, which she addresses in the Author’s Note, wherein she expresses gratitude to Warlpiri elders who welcomed her to Country despite her ‘murky ancestry’ (v). While reading this book, I have been left with the notion that Crispin’s search has taken her readers on a transformative journey. If she hadn’t had that driving sense of purpose fuelling her, we wouldn’t have this book, and what a tremendous loss that would be.