After the Demolition

Judges' comments

After the Demolition is an impressive first book by Zenobia Frost, an emerging poet based in Brisbane. Across four sections, Frost demonstrates fine control of poetic form, exploring notions of place and space both corporeal and metaphysical. The poems as a whole engage with contemporary culture as deftly as they do with identity, history or biology.

Each poem in this collection demonstrates cerebral questionings of what it means to occupy, and destroy, space. Frost is unafraid of gaps and the poems often find their strength in what is left unsaid. The depth of her emotions is conveyed in the poems’ assured silences and careful utterances. This is a book with ‘kerbs / in all the right places’, reminding us that /any good renovation is invisible’.