Jude Montague is an award-winning printmaker, and a composer, poet and artist. She is interested in ethnomusicology, particularly Latvian folk song and the electric organ. Her former profession is a media archivist in international news. As a contributor to the recently published Poet Town: the poetry of Hastings and thereabouts, she talked to Sussex Exclusive about the magic of Hastings and St Leonards, poetry and life by the sea.
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Poetry, place, and the magic of Hastings
For me, Hastings is more than a backdrop – it’s a living presence, an energy that seeps into my poetry. It’s a unique place, and that intersects with the work poets are doing now. A lot of us are reflecting back on Hastings too, because it isn’t just a shopping centre and a bus station. It has history, layers of stories, and an extraordinary cast of characters – some of whom appear in Poet Town. There’s Edward Lear with his playful children’s rhymes, and Rudyard Kipling with his famous poem about Sussex smugglers. That one always reminds me of my father, a great Sussex historian, who would often recite it.
Finding home in Hastings
I wasn’t born here – I’m a “DFL” (down from London) – but I arrived about 15 years ago with my husband. His family has long connections to Sussex through work, farming, and hop-picking, and my own childhood holidays often took me to the south coast, which gave me an early sense of the magic of this region.
Hastings itself came into focus later, when I was invited to perform at one of Danny Pockets’ legendary “Sonics” events. These small, experimental festivals used makeshift venues across town to stage sound art and performances, and they gave me an immediate sense of belonging. I rang my husband straight away and said, I’ve found the place.
A workshop on Kings Road
Since then, I’ve become part of the creative fabric of St Leonards, running a workshop on Kings Road. It’s my favourite place – such an odd, eclectic mix of shops and people, with a real community between traders. It has character, it’s full of stories, and you never know who’s going to walk past. It reminds me a little of Brick Lane in London, but it’s also very much its own thing.
Poems with local roots
When I was invited to contribute to Poet Town, I sent in four poems – chosen, I admit, a little at random. One of them, Flight, was directly inspired by Kings Road itself, with its clusters of second-hand shops and house-clearance furniture. I’d often find myself staring at old chairs lined up outside and imagining them alive, with their own personalities. The poem imagines a chair trying to escape before being captured by a removal van. It’s whimsical, but also about how we attach ourselves to objects and their stories. Another poem, Fleur de Mellon, captures the bohemian spirit that, to me, also defines contemporary Hastings.
Discovering fellow poets
Being part of Poet Town has also given me a chance to reconnect with poetry on the page. I’m used to performance and spoken word, but reading others’ poems in print let me step into their imaginative worlds in a different way. That’s the beauty of this book – it’s a portal, linking past and present, performance and print.
I’ve also discovered new voices I admire. I think warmly of Badger, a long-time Hastings poet whose work I first came across in the anthology. He’s written beautifully about everyday observations – even something like roadkill on Sussex lanes. It might sound dark, but it’s about how our lives intersect with the natural world – the strange poetry of what we see as we drive.
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Why poetry matters
For me, this is what makes poetry essential. It’s more everyday than people think. It’s like drawing – you do it because you need to. We all live in our heads; we observe things, we daydream, we notice details. Poetry is a way of sharing that, pinning it down in words so others can recognise it. It doesn’t have to follow rules or structure like an essay or a documentary. It’s fluid, instinctive, and yet precise.
Hastings is the perfect setting for such work. It keeps its magic alive. Sussex itself is full of history and names that feel like they belong in a fantasy novel. Edward Lear picked up on that in his limericks, and when you live here you can feel it too – the sense that you’re inhabiting a place layered with stories, old and new.
You can find out more about Poet Town, the poets involved, St Leonards and Hastings here:
