Why has my hedge died? Nobody else’s hedge has died! It was visibly dying before the drought. Do hedges have a maximum lifespan, like us? Have I been nursing a 100 year old hedge in its dotage?
Luke Kennard
@lukekennard.bsky.social
Novelist, poet, lecturer at University of Birmingham. Latest novel BLACK BAG out March 12th 2026. https://linktr.ee/lukekennard
Would really like to go ahead with the Anthropic lawsuit but the form is giving me a headache and I’m not sure it’s worth the paltry share of the three grand it’ll end up being. Should probably crack on on principle.
Disgustingly, stupefyingly humid again. I’m so glad I didn’t immediately throw away all my fans like I was going to.
In TK Maxx workshopping potential school bag responses with my eldest
I do think “every rich person went insane during covid because it was the first time they’ve been inconvenienced in decades” felt a little reductive at first but damn if isn’t more and more compelling as the years drag on
2014: Harmful air pollution above legal limits. 2024: Harmful air pollution driven down to legal limits. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
“September is a terrifyingly expensive month.” - T S Eliot if he’d had school age kids
- Why are you getting sent so many books? - So I can write something nice about them if I like them. It’s called a blurb. - Like on the walls at Five Guys? - Yes, like on the walls at Five Guys.
I did once say yes to reviewing applications for a Harvard humanities residency, but it took me half a day to fill in the 8BEN form because American tax law is terrifying and then they would only pay by cheque and my bank charged so much for the conversion I ended up getting paid minus eight quid
One of my fondest childhood memories was not knowing the name of any CEO of any company.
a "liminal space" is any place where there's no one there and the carpet looks kind of weird
Sometimes I feel like they make up new oxbridge colleges using a random word generator
🎵“Make healthy choices” to tune of We Are the Champions
Tomatoes look great when they’re growing but when they fall from the plant and squash a little, it’s like, who threw all this Italian food everywhere?
Spiders always be like “I’ll build a web on the clothesline! It’s perfect!”
It’s because of the male loneliness epidemic - we’re so sad we’re *studying*
Guys, I just found out colanders can also be used for straining the water pasta, broccoli, potatoes and other boiled foods!
Personally I think we should always be warning each other not to look at the sun every day not just on eclipse day
So I can only look at the lightning if I have a colander on my head got it
Watching a movie on terrestrial TV last night and it struck me that not one single product / business is using AI to generate its ads. I imagine they’ve *tried* but got told by focus groups that it was horrible and would damage their brand. Coca Cola and clueless city cafes the exception.
Galia Admoni and @lukekennard.bsky.social in conversation tonight to celebrate Galia’s spectacular new book.
Bring more evils Lord bring more evils on they who create flatpack furniture that requires a *drill* to assemble
Was awesome to join Bloomberg to talk about the lie of AI - everyone's buying into the mag7 believing CapEx is going towards diverse AI demand, when all it's really doing is supporting the circular cloud revenues of two unprofitable, unsustainable AI labs. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHcZ...
Zitron: "Everyone Has Been Sold a Lie" on AI
YouTube video by Bloomberg Podcasts
youtube.com
I don’t know, I think it’s probably just as well we get used to the rich having their own water supply
Black Bag by Luke Kennard (@lukekennard.bsky.social) is a firework of a novel: an investigation into the crisis of masculinity and an off-kilter love story that is blazingly funny and profoundly humane. Find out more about this Booker Prize 2026-longlisted book: thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...
The thing I want to achieve most in my life is to one day find someone’s lost cat or dog from a poster.