Delighted that @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social's Crowd Voltage is @poetrypharmacy.bsky.social Book of the Month: review below. See him with Isabelle Baafi in #miltonkeynes this Sat: tickets (inperson/zoom) on website. poetrypharmacy.co.uk/blogs/newsle... @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social #poetry

I'd rather be starfish than the sun

This evening, Saturday March 28th marks Earth Hour, a simple, shared gesture that circles the globe each year. For one hour, at 8.30pm local time, lights are dimmed, switches are turned off, and the b...

poetrypharmacy.co.uk

Look what's just arrived 😍 Thanks to @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social Can't wait to get started!

'The collection swings delightfully from the surreal [...] to the more straightforward albeit beautiful lyric poems and then back again’ – Mícheál McCann, @irishtimes.com, on @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social's just-published fifth collection Crowd Voltage. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

If you listen to poetry podcasts, there is a new in-depth interview with me by @gregorykearns.bsky.social out today on The Poems We Made Along The Way. I talk about queer joy, neurodivergence and the techniques I used to begin poems in Crowd Voltage. (Available on most podcast platforms.)

Bowled over to see The Irish Times today has a brilliant review of my new @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social collection of poems, Crowd Voltage! I love its focus on empathy and connection.⚡️🤠⚡️

John McCullough (@mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social) will be reading from his just-published fifth collection Crowd Voltage @mklitfest.bsky.social on 25 April, alongside Isabelle Baafi.

Milton Keynes Literary Festival@mklitfest.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Award-winning poets Isabelle Baafi and John McCullough explore identify, togetherness and separation, and the human search for joy. In-person or livesteam: mklitfest.org/in-person-ev... #poetry #poets #JohnMcCullough #isabellebaafi @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social @faberbooks.bsky.social

Last night's excellent online launch reading with Lily Blacksell, Rita Ann Higgins and John McCullough is now available to watch on YouTube: youtube.com/live/p_0hOeo... All three poets' new books are available to order now from the Bloodaxe website: www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/new_titl...

'Technically, the human walk is an interrupted fall.' I could fall into a morass of adjectives while trying to praise @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social 's new collection, 'Crowd Voltage' @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social . Instead, I will simply say that it is an uninterrupted walk into joy.

Sussex gave the world Percy Bysshe Shelley — now Steyning celebrates him. Join us 27 May at Steyning Parish Church for “Shelley: A Celebration of Sussex’s Most Famous Poet” with award-winning poet @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social . 🎟 Public tickets on sale 14 March (Friends can book now)

Shelley: a celebration of Sussex’s most famous poet with John McCullough, Shelley Memorial Project - Steyning Festival | A Diverse Celebration of Arts and Community

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 She...

steyningfestival.co.uk

The current issues of Poetry Review and Poetry London contain poems from my new collection Crowd Voltage, out with @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social on 26th March. 🙂

“I’ve always thought the opposite, that most poetry isn’t hard enough, in the sense that it’s not interesting or engaging enough. It doesn’t hold the attention—you read it once or twice & you’ve used it up. The engagement I look for and too often miss is a kind of pleasure…the opposite of boredom.”

Queer poetry in London tomorrow from poets including @troycabida.bsky.social and @mermanpoet.bsky.social.

It exists! The first copies of Crowd Voltage, my new poetry collection with Bloodaxe out on March 26. ⚡️🙂⚡️

This poem by @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social is one of those that pops into your consciousness from time to time and stays with you for hours.

A love poem for Valentine's Day from my new book, "Dirt Rich"

Thanks @poetrysociety.org.uk for the new issue of Poetry Review. Featuring a fabulous new poem by @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social

Coming soon! From the Bloodaxe New Books 2026 catalogue. With thanks to Joelle Taylor for the endorsement. ⚡️🙂⚡️

Can’t believe I wrote this six years ago. Still true. x

This week @Waterstones are offering 25% discount on preorders for @BloodaxeBooks titles out in early 2026, including mine. Offer closes 17 October. Just go to waterstones.com, put 9781780377810 into the search box, click PREORDER and add code OCTOBER25 for the discount.

My online Advanced Poetry Workshops course returns in October. Each week I talk on the effects of techniques and we read contemporary pieces. We workshop students' poetry and there are exercises to help produce fresh, surprising poems. www.creativewritingprogramme.org.uk/advanced-poe...

Been working on my next collection Crowd Voltage since 2021, aiming to find fresh ways to write about working-class and queer experiences that would draw on my energetic approach to imagery and phrase-making. Here are some of the writers I’ve gone back to most often…

Excited to say my fifth collection of poems, Crowd Voltage, will be published by @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social in March 2026. It's a high-energy book about class, crowds and community. This specially designed cover is by the brilliant queer artist, Villain.

Poem for the new month. From Wendy Xu's book, You Are Not Dead. #poem #books #writing

Kim Addonizio. This is the opening of a poem in her fantastic recent collection, Exit Opera (Norton, 2024). I’ve been a fan for a long time and for me this book and the last see her at the top of her game. So wildly imaginative and thoughtful, intimate and funny all at once.

Twenty years since my 2005 author photo. 🙂 Part of my boy band phase. Album includes the hit singles ‘Dreaming Barman’, ‘Ding! Dong! My PhD is Dead!’, ‘Puberty Won’t Leave’ and ‘Nobody, Nobody [Wants My First Book Yet]’.

@mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social I've Carried a Door on my Back for Ten Years is the perfect foundation for tonight's class on redrafting #TheProcessofPoetry #Cantwaittoshare

A copy of #HerNameisAlice is winging its way to several politicians and members of the House of Lords who have been offered, and have accepted a copy.

John McCullough (@mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social), from Opening Line (@brokensleepbooks.bsky.social)

The latest poem in our little sidewalk poetry box is @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social’s Flamingo from 📖 Reckless Paper Birds 🦩

Just seen this poem by John McCullough in Broken Sleep’s ‘Opening Line’. It has stopped my heart - it’s like it was written just for me!