Luke Kennard is a poet and writer of fiction who was born in Kingston Upon Thames in 1981. He won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2005 and his first collection of prose poems The Solex Brothers was published later that year by Stride. His second collection The Harbour Beyond the Movie was published by Salt in 2007 and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, making him the youngest writer ever to be shortlisted. His collection A Lost Expression was released in 2012 alongside an experimental short story, Holophin, which won the Saboteur Novella award that year. His collection, Cain, was published by Penned in the Margins in 2016 and shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. His collection Notes on the Sonnets, an 'anarchic' response to Shakespeare's sonnets, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2021. His fiction and poetry criticism has appeared in Poetry London, Times Literary Supplement and The National (Abu Dhabi). He has a PhD in English from the University of Exeter and lectures at the University of Birmingham. In 2014 he was named one of the Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society in their once per-decade list. His first novel, The Transition, was BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and his second novel The Answer to Everything was published in 2021. 

Twitter: @LukeKennard

Books in order of publication:

The Solex Brothers (poetry) (2005)

The Harbour Beyond the Movie (poetry) (2007)

The Migrane Hotel (poetry) (2009)

Planet Shaped Horse (poem-play) (2011)

The Necropolis Boat (poetry) (2012)

A Lost Expression (poetry) (2012)

Holophin (novella) (2012)

Cain 9poetry) (2016)

The Transition (2017) 

The Answer to Everything (2021)

Notes on the Sonnets (poetry) (2021)