Notes on The Sonnets
Published on 23. April 2021
212 pages
978-1-913850-02-9 (ISBN)
Description
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
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
Reviews / Votes
Joyously unclassifiable.The Guardian * The Guardian * Kennard's book, this endless party talk, is as riddling and enjoyable as the old sonnets on which it riffs. Think of it as the ideal cabaret: it never coheres, it never wants to, and it'll never leave you at a loss for fun.
?????The Telegraph * The Telegraph * Consistently entertaining ... [Kennard's] most mature and emotionally vulnerable collection yet.
Tristram Fane Saunders, TLS * TLS * Family life, doubt and faith, society, people, writers, social commentary, dark matter and string theory, the world at large, are all covered at some pace, each poem containing laugh-aloud ideas but also deep and considered moments which sneak up and surprise you ... extraordinary and original.
Rupert Loydell, International Times * International Times * Notes on the Sonnets ... complicates history, truth and authority, all with wry wit, infectious humour and pronounced melancholia.
Kate Simpson, Poetry Review * Poetry Review *
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Luke Kennard
Notes on The Sonnets
Book
04/2021
Penned in the Margins
€32.37
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Person
Luke Kennard is the author of five collections of
poetry and three pamphlets. His second collection,
The Harbour Beyond the Movie, was shortlisted for
the 2007 Forward Prize for Best Collection and
his fifth, Cain, for the 2017 Dylan Thomas Prize.
He lectures in Creative Writing at the University
of Birmingham.
poetry and three pamphlets. His second collection,
The Harbour Beyond the Movie, was shortlisted for
the 2007 Forward Prize for Best Collection and
his fifth, Cain, for the 2017 Dylan Thomas Prize.
He lectures in Creative Writing at the University
of Birmingham.
