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  3. Notes on the Sonnets

EBOOK

Notes on the Sonnets

Luke Kennard
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Year
2021
Language
English
Publisher
Penned in the Margins

About

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

Related Subjects

  • Shakespeare
  • Poetry
  • Adult Nonfiction
  • General

Reviews

"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

Artists

Luke KennardAuthor