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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Hope it hits the spot! ⚡️🙂⚡️

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Rosanna McGlone @rosannamcglone.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

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

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Bloodaxe Books @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

'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...

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

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.)

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

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.⚡️🤠⚡️

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Bloodaxe Books @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

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.

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Bloodaxe Books @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

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...

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Alison Brackenbury @abrackenbury.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

'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.

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

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. 🙂

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

One of my favourite poets. I teach on MacCaig each year so my bag is regularly bursting with cigarettes, toads and a bluetit the size of a planet…

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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

“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.”

jjgallaher.blogspot.com

On Difficulty in Poetry - Reginald Shepherd

On Difficulty in Poetry Reginald Shepherd The Writer's Chronicle May/Summer 2008 “What are these songs straining at sense— you the consequen...

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

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

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On Viewless Wings @onviewlesswings.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

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.

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Graeme Richardson @ravoon.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

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

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Thanks Graeme! It’s the first poem in my Bloodaxe collection out in March (Crowd Voltage). 🙂

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Karen Goodwin @mssgoodwin.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

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

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

Thanks Shaun - glad it struck a chord. 🙂

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

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

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

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

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

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.

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Been advised that this offer begins on Tuesday 14 October (tomorrow) and runs till 17 October.

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

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...

creativewritingprogramme.org.uk

Advanced Poetry Workshops — The CWP

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

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…

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

I hope so! 🙂 I have performed at the South Bank Centre for Outspoken before and taught online with them. (This book is with Bloodaxe but I’m sure I will read with other queer poets published by them like Simon Maddrell who lives round the corner from me.)

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Thanks Doug! It was a lot to ask Villain to produce something so homo it outgays the cover for Reckless Paper Birds but they got there. 🌈😁⚡️

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

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.

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Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

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

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

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.

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

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]’.

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Always looking for new ways to stop students looking at smartphones while I'm talking. :)

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

OK I’m hiring you as my stylist! 🙂

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Bright orange has always been my favourite colour. :) I wish I could wear it more. My Irish ancestors conferred on me the gift of pasty skin which outside summer tends toward vampiric blue. I still have a pair of bright orange Nike Air TNs though.

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John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Love your photo and caption equally! :)

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Rosanna McGlone @rosannamcglone.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

@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

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Caroline Litman @alicemydaughter.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

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.

Promotional material with a teal background, showing the book cover of “Her name is Alice” by Caroline Litman. The cover is a picture of Alice in a grey coat, beige trousers and brown shoes carrying a neon pink handbag. It shows a quote about the book by the poet John McCullough, “Shines an unyielding light on the devastating impact of transphobia”.

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