The Backwater Sermons

Book excerpt: Jay Hulme is an award-winning transgender poet, performer, educator and speaker. In late 2019, his fascination with old church buildings turned into a life-changing encounter with the God he had never believed in, and he was baptised in the Anglican church. In this new poetry collection, Jay details his journey through faith and baptism during an unprecedented world-wide pandemic. As he finds God in the ruined factories and polluted canals of his home city, Jonah is heckled over etymology, angels appear in tube stations, and Jesus sits atop a multi-story car park. Cathedrals are trans, trans people are cathedrals, and amidst it all God reaches out to meet us exactly where we are. Jay’s poetry explores belief in the modern world and offers a perspective on queer faith that will appeal not only to Christians, but young members of the LGBT+ community who are interested in faith but unsure of where to start.