He scooped the pools by winning first and second place and highly commended for best written poems in the Serious section as well as second and third place in the Humorous section.

Poets from all over Australia and overseas compete in this most prestigious of poetry competitions, which is judged by three highly accredited judges, who themselves must have won three ABPA accredited competitions before becoming qualified as judges.

This championship win caps off another at the West Australian championships in November last year, when Tom was also awarded overall champion. He is currently Australian Champion, having won the last Australian Championships held at Corryong Victoria in 2015.

The next Australian championships will be held in Toodyay West Australia in November this year.

Tom will be endeavouring to win his second successive Australian championship and is currently working on a poem inspired by recent local events here on the Mid North Coast. He considers himself a contemporary, traditional style poet in the vogue of Australian 19th Century poets, Lawson, Paterson and CJ Dennis.

Tom believes that Paterson was being a tad modest and humble in not acknowledging his own genius, along with that of Lawson and Dennis, who in his opinion, wrote some of the best poetry and prose to ever come out of this country. He believes that poets capture the history, culture and mood of a time and define it in words as an artist does with canvas and paint.

Tom has won approximately 35 national written poetry competitions, best published poem of the year in  2015 and won a Golden Damper Poetry Performance award at  Tamworth Country Music Festival in 2016, performing one of his own poems on stage. He continues to write with a passion, believing that his pièce de résistance is still somewhere deep inside, waiting to be written. 

He is currently president of a national poetry organisation, with about 450 members, known as ABPA, whose committee meets regularly on skype, to oversee and co-ordinate various performance and written poetry events and functions throughout Australia.

When not writing poetry, Tom is a keen Toastmaster in Port Macquarie’s evening and morning clubs. He is also a keen musician, and with his partner, plays in a local duet called Spiral Time.