Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2021
Longlisted for the Rathbones folio prize
A Poetry Book society Recommendation
Luke Kennard recasts Shakespeare's 154 sonnets as a series of anarchic prose poems set in the same joyless house party.
A physicist explains dark matter in the kitchen. A crying man is consoled by a Sigmund Freud action figure. An out-of-hours doctor sells phials of dark red liquid from a briefcase. Someone takes out a guitar.
Wry, insolent and self-eviscerating, Notes on the Sonnets riddles the Bard with the anxieties of the modern age, bringing Kennard's affectionate critique to subjects as various as love, marriage, God, metaphysics and a sad horse.
'Luke Kennard has the uncanny genius of being able to stick a knife in your heart with such originality and verve that you start thinking "aren't knives fascinating... and hearts, my god!" whilst everything slowly goes black.'
- Caroline Bird
| ISBN: | 9781908058812 |
| Publication date: | 23rd April 2021 |
| Author: | Luke Kennard |
| Publisher: | Penned in the Margins |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 212 pages |
| Genres: |
Poetry by individual poets |