Judges’ Comments

Selima Hill’s Fridge is a compendium of jewel-like poems in which a dynamic accretion of objects ­– chinking tea-sets, mothers, rabbits, mealie-worms, gold Birkenstocks, grunting babies, morphine, cigarettes and, of course, the fridge in its various guises ­– is marshalled, with Hill’s trademark humour and with great tenderness, into the service of the book’s central themes: presence and absence, the suicides of friends, the dead and the problem of how we grieve for them.

STANDING IN THE PRESENCE OF MY FATHER

Standing in the presence of my father,

I feel as uneasy as a child

standing in a field full of fridges

with all the doors torn off

and I can see

bodies,

all exactly the same,

lying on their sides,

with perfect ponytails.