John McCullough's 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. John McCullough 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.

"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." - on Crowd Voltage

"McCullough is a visionary, a genius polymath. His worlds and miniature observations are deeply satisfying to stumble into. McCullough’s writing feels tender, intimate, zany and yes …cool." - on Panic Responses

"A rare literary phenomenon…a frank and militant declaration of joy." - The Times Literary Supplement

"McCullough’s poetic terrain is one of subtly-rendered and political surrealism… Reckless Paper Birds is a timely and necessary collection which vibrates with protest; these poems are talismans against hate." - on Reckless Paper Birds