The Poetry Society

Luke Kennard

"When she was 14 my sister won a copy of Penguin's Emergency Kit in a competition. We used to read the John Hartley Williams poem about the film pitch out loud together. Heck, I've only just remembered that: probably the single most decisive moment in the kind of poetry I started writing.

Also Bloodaxe's The New Poetry was on the English syllabus and I remember being especially drawn to Frank Kuppner and John Ash's work. And Armitage, natch. I started reading more openly experimental stuff later on."