Crowd Voltage

John McCullough lives in Hove. 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. Spacecraft, his second collection, was published by Penned in the Margins in 2016 and shortlisted for the Ledbury-Forte Prize as well as being a summer read in The Guardian. His third book of poems, Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins, 2019), won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. His fourth collection, Panic Response (Penned in the Margins, 2022), was a Book of the Year for The Telegraph and one of The Times’ Notable New Poetry Books of 2022. The collection’s long poem, ‘Flower of Sulphur’, was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. His fifth, Crowd Voltage, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2026. John is a Senior Lecturer in creative writing at the University of Brighton as well as teaching on poetry for organisations including the Arvon Foundation and the online Creative Writing Programme.

• 11 Choir I: The Body of the Crowd15 Giraffe16 The Dreams of Moss17 Bad Habits18 Dawn of the West Pier19 Legs20 Marginalia21 Queer Studies22 Night School23 Field Trip24 Portholes25 Interview with the West Pier26 Family27 Masses28 Quiver29 The Red Houses of My Ancestors30 Non-Stop31 Popcorn32 I Was Born in an Adidas Tracksuit33 And Let’s Not Forget Tables34 The Humans35 The West Pier Tries Arizona36 Parallel Circuits37 Rainbows Don’t Exist II: The Crowd of the Body41 If Loneliness Is a Moth42 The Innocents43 To a Glass of Water44 The Visitors45 Shotgun46 Blacksmith47 Rungs48 St Simeon the Stylite50 Sunfish51 The West Pier’s CV52 I Am the Mob53 The Long Jumper’s Diary54 Chirp Chirp55 Against Me56 Greeting the Hoverfly57 Shut Up and Jump in the Jeep58 Abracadabra!59 Watermelon Man60 Don’t Mention It61 Small Green Thing62 Disclaimer63 Please64 Flight of the Birches65 Push the Button66 Song of the West Pier67 Looking 69 [‘I don’t want to have everything I want’] 71 Notes

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.