John McCullough Launch Events
'Elegant, curious, and surreal, McCullough’s poetry invades like moss, making everything alive again. A stunning, vibrant collection from one of the UK’s most inventive thinkers. Glorious.' – Joelle Taylor on Crowd Voltage
John McCullough's fifth collection Crowd Voltage was published by Bloodaxe in March 2026. He has published four previous collections, one with Salt and three with Penned in the Margins, most recently, the Costa-shortlisted Reckless Paper Birds (2019), winner of the Hawthornden Prize, and Panic Response (2022), which included his long poem 'Flowers of Sulphur', shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. His first collection of poems, The Frost Fairs, was published by Salt in 2011 and won the Polari First Book Prize. It was a Book of the Year in The Independent as well as a summer read in The Observer.
Crowd Voltage addresses yearnings for community. It probes fragmentation within groups and individuals – disturbances within the body of the crowd and the crowd of the body. Engaging with working-class and queer experiences, the poems move between solitude and togetherness, haunted by ghosts from history as they dream of unity and discover joy in deserted corners. To be common here is to share not only qualities but stories with many others – to be classed alongside people with similar origins and become connected also to what is commonplace in the world of animals and plants, days and tables. Sky and sea dominate as the speakers search for oneness and completion, confronted by vast silences and the shadow of Brighton’s collapsing West Pier.
'Crowd Voltage is a lively, striking expoloration of community and connectedness, McCullough paints the body as part of something bigger, whether celestial, architectural, or ecological – these poems examine class, queer lineage, and our "non-human family". [...] A bright and thoughtful book.' – Jenny Danes, Poetry Book Society Bulletin
Mícheál McCann gave Crowd Voltage a wonderful review at the top of his new poetry feature in The Irish Times of 4 April 2026.
‘The pursuit of a community or crowd is perhaps the central queer origin myth. When you've found said crowd you could become the cool kids, the in crowd - you belong and are finally afforded some plurality. The singular pronoun becomes collective. These concerns are explored in John McCullough's perky and open-hearted Crowd Voltage […] There is a preternatural empathy laced through McCullough's work, […] Poems in this collection put me in mind of a meeting of Mark Doty and Frank O'Hara, but something uniquely McCullough's too in their openness. […] The collection swings delightfully from the surreal – the voice of Brighton's iconic and collapsing West Pier features heavily – to the more straightforward albeit beautiful lyric poems and then back again’ – Mícheál McCann, The Irish Times
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Tuesday 5 May, 8pm
Launch reading for Crowd Voltage in Prestwich
The Crooked Man, 7 Fairfax Rd, Prestwich, Manchester M25 1AS
More details TBC.
Wednesday 27 May, 7.45pm
Steyning Festival - Shelley: a celebration of Sussex’s most famous poet with John McCullough, Shelley Memorial Project
Steyning Parish Church, Church Street, Steyning, BN44 3YB
Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the major English Romantic poets and is internationally known as one of the most influential poets in the English language. To celebrate him, we will have a night of Shelley-inspired entertainment. It will be led by award-winning Sussex-based poet, John McCullough, and the Shelley Memorial Project which aims to facilitate a fitting memorial to Shelley in the Horsham district where he was born. The evening will include the winning Steyning Grammar School poets and a chance for locals to perform too.
Tickets: £12.50. More details and booking here.
PAST EVENTS
Tuesday 24 March 2026, 7pm - YouTube
Online launch reading by Lily Blacksell, Rita Ann Higgins and John McCullough
Lily Blacksell, Rita Ann Higgins and John McCullough celebrated the publication of their new books by reading live and discussing their work with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
This free Bloodaxe launch event was streamed on YouTube Live and is now available on this YouTube page: https://youtube.com/live/p_0hOeoZUtE
Brilliant readings from all three poets followed by an excellent discussion. John read last in each set.
[05 March 2026]
