This book will be released in October 2026.
Pre-orders are charged at time of order and the book will be posted to you as soon as it becomes available.
UK postage is 99 pence per order.
‘Rhys Owain Williams writes about grief in ways others haven’t yet done. Here, he finds the strangest possible routes towards writing of death, and in doing so presents us with the most human ways of talking about it. There is a poem here where Clippy helps write a letter to a dying friend, and it is one of the saddest things I’ve read all year.’ – Aaron Kent
‘Williams writes fresh, nostalgic poems of the tenderest kind, leading us so gently down paths of grief, fatherhood and family.’ – Rhian Elizabeth
‘I like a poet who writes about unruly creatures: pigeons, forgotten and tormented goldfish, dogs and cormorants gathered around car parks, bins, rivers, houses, fly-tips and fairgrounds. I like a poet who writes sadness with the same feral tail-flick of a missing cat. I like a poet who gives me the sense of walking the backstreets of Swansea, growing older by the second, wondering about Welsh identity. I like a poet who writes masculinity and fatherhood as if they’ve been constructed from all the leftover bits of Swansea. I love Bucky the cat-child, the dutiful stepfather, and all the poetic steps towards becoming a father in this chaotic black hole of a world. Dw i’n hoffi’r bardd hwn. Even though I needed Duolingo to help me say that, I need no help at all to enjoy Williams’s brilliant new collection.’ – Jessica Mookherjee
In Here’s What Happens When You Enter a Black Hole, Rhys Owain Williams explores modern masculinity, mental health, and the evolving dynamics of family. These are poems that look at the legacies that shape us – reflecting upon love, loss and lineage with a raw openness.
The tender complexities of fathers and sons are considered alongside the challenges of contemporary life and the fragility of the natural world. Elsewhere, the lines between our own realities and the virtual realities of video games and YouTube videos blur. The AI of a workout app becomes sentient, an exclusive members’ club is created from phrases from spam emails and Microsoft’s much-maligned Office Assistant ‘Clippy’ helps to write a letter to a dying friend.
In this, his second poetry collection, Williams captures the surreal and the deeply personal with vivid imagery and heartfelt introspection. Here's What Happens When You Enter a Black Hole is a celebration of the ordinary and extraordinary, honouring the stories we inherit and those we forge ourselves. Like the gravitational pull of a black hole, these poems draw us toward the truths at the heart of our shared human experience – revealing the light that emerges from even the deepest voids.
