Enter the Water - Jack Wiltshire

AN OBSERVER BEST POETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023

'A dark-light beauty' Ali Smith

i sat in a chapel the other night in my big gay coat
talking to a god whose answer is only sometimes no

no that was a lie
the house of god was closed the night i needed him
i sat outside on the granite steps of a fountain
happily pouring itself an eternal supply

ENTER THE WATER follows a young man who becomes homeless when he is evicted from his flat in Cambridge during the turbulent early months of 2022. As the wind stirs, our narrator embarks on a journey from his park bench out towards the coast, wrapped in his 'big gay coat', accompanied by his pigeons, a blackbird and Storm Eunice - 'Nature' in colourfully alive and playful forms. Along the way he searches for a beauty inherent to all of us, and then calls us to reclaim it.

ENTER THE WATER is a story invested in care - care towards the environment; towards the political realities of recession and the war in Ukraine; towards the dynamic self, the human whose love for swimming becomes synonymous with self-acceptance and survival; and to everyone, managing to manage.

Walking along the edges of our troubled current affairs, animated by a spirit of cheerful protest, this book is an offering and an urgent invitation to exit and re-enter our world - and to celebrate our capacity for courage in times of suffering.