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Reckless Paper Birds
Reckless Paper Birds blends raw emotion, acute social observation and sharp wit to capture the gay male experience. The author of the critically acclaimed collections The Frost Fairs and Spacecraft, Brighton-based John McCullough pulls no punches in this latest - and his most powerful -collection. These are poems of skill, joy and quiet musicality that reflect the conflict and complexity of being.
88 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2019
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175 people want to read
About the author
John McCullough
33 books21 followersJohn McCullough’s words are full of a freshness and invention which have seen him described as Brighton’s brightest young poet. Often beginning from anecdotal, transitory incidents, his pieces filter reality through a sophisticated array of voices, variously formal, abstract, surreal and humorous, merging and subtly blending as his artfully chosen subjects dictate.
Based in Brighton, McCullough teaches creative writing at the Open University and the University of Sussex, where he was awarded his doctorate for a thesis on friendship in English Renaissance writing. He has published in The Rialto, The Guardian, Ambit, London Magazine, Magma, The Wolf and Chroma, in whose international writing competition he won second prize in 2008. John was also co-editor of the Queer Writing South anthology Whoosh!, published by Pighog.
Based in Brighton, McCullough teaches creative writing at the Open University and the University of Sussex, where he was awarded his doctorate for a thesis on friendship in English Renaissance writing. He has published in The Rialto, The Guardian, Ambit, London Magazine, Magma, The Wolf and Chroma, in whose international writing competition he won second prize in 2008. John was also co-editor of the Queer Writing South anthology Whoosh!, published by Pighog.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
dnf
January 20, 2023i love dnf'ing poetry collections because i can't make myself read 30 pages 🥰
October 8, 2023
I've never before read a poetry collection in one sitting, never felt compelled to keep turning the pages as if I was reading a work of fiction and needed to know what comes next. This was a first.
I usually steer clear of poetry. If it's less than excellent it's unbearable, the mediocre every bit as cringeworthy as the truly bad — perhaps even more so, its earnest striving for and missing the mark painful to sit through. On the other hand, poetry that *is* excellent can make me feel things very intensely, which I hate. Regardless, for whatever reason, over the last year I've read three collections, the others being by Richard Siken and Mark Bibbins. Those each had an occasional turn of phrase that stopped me in my tracks, but finishing them felt like a duty rather than a joy.
Not the case here. Almost every poem — for a while it looked like it was literally going to be every one, which would have been freakish — moved me, to tears or goosebumps or startled laughter.
I'm not sure what I've been looking for, reading poetry when I claim I don't like to read poetry, but whatever it was, I found some of it here.
I usually steer clear of poetry. If it's less than excellent it's unbearable, the mediocre every bit as cringeworthy as the truly bad — perhaps even more so, its earnest striving for and missing the mark painful to sit through. On the other hand, poetry that *is* excellent can make me feel things very intensely, which I hate. Regardless, for whatever reason, over the last year I've read three collections, the others being by Richard Siken and Mark Bibbins. Those each had an occasional turn of phrase that stopped me in my tracks, but finishing them felt like a duty rather than a joy.
Not the case here. Almost every poem — for a while it looked like it was literally going to be every one, which would have been freakish — moved me, to tears or goosebumps or startled laughter.
On this window, the Boeing 767
overhead appears in each raindrop
as though it's laid planespawn
and is leaving its young behind.
I'm not sure what I've been looking for, reading poetry when I claim I don't like to read poetry, but whatever it was, I found some of it here.
The Zigzag Path
The day connives and you think you cannot live here,
in your body, alone and rushing forward all the time
like a silty river. All you wanted was to find a home
beside the souls of white roses and hurt no one
but the light keeps shifting. An invisible broom
keeps flicking you out from cover. You roll up
at each destination with a different face, as wrong
as the beech tree in Preston Park hung with trainers,
a museum of tongues. The day connives, but this dirt
is proof of trying. The chalk path you never longed for
zigzags through cowslips no one asked to throng.
In the park, a robin has built its nest inside a Reebok,
the shoe's throat packed with moss and a crooked
whisper of grass that says I can, I can, I can.
December 24, 2019
I’m grateful to the Costa Awards shortlist for introducing me to several poetry books I probably otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to read – my library system automatically orders all of the category shortlists each year. The first thing that struck me about this collection was the verbs. From the opening line onwards – “The day connives and you think you cannot live here” – the verbs are hard-hitting; McCullough never chooses an easy word that comes to the mind automatically. The second thing to strike me was the imagery, often repeated across several poems: origami birds, fossils, tea, gaping birds and windows. Flashes of nature burst into a footloose life in Brighton (one of Britain’s LGBT hubs), with animal behavior often echoing humans’ or vice versa. The poems are by turns randy, neurotic, playful and nostalgic. In “Flock of Paper Birds,” one of my favorites, the poet tries to reconcile the faith he grew up in with his unabashed sexuality: “I needed the God of my childhood to be useful / so I folded him, shaped his pages into wings. // … I fractured Leviticus with pleats.”
Additional favorite lines:
“I have fixed many names to this body across the years—prophet, demon, twit.” (from “Stones”)
“This body is my deluded hero It refuses to accept it’s dissolving / that my lungs and pancreas so snug in their cavities will be unhomed” (from “The Sandman”)
“I prefer to wear impatience / like a hula hoop in café queues, / slamming into other patrons.” (from “Strange Stories and Outlandish Facts”)
Additional favorite lines:
“I have fixed many names to this body across the years—prophet, demon, twit.” (from “Stones”)
“This body is my deluded hero It refuses to accept it’s dissolving / that my lungs and pancreas so snug in their cavities will be unhomed” (from “The Sandman”)
“I prefer to wear impatience / like a hula hoop in café queues, / slamming into other patrons.” (from “Strange Stories and Outlandish Facts”)
August 31, 2022
I don't usually read poetry and this is only the second poetry book I've ever bought (and I've bought a lot of books!)
So what made me dive in? A friend shared his poem Soulcraft which starts: It’s true: there is a light at the centre of my body. McCullough wrote the line in the middle of an emotional breakdown and finished the poem many years later. I was intrigued and invited him on my podcast: The Meaningful Life with Andrew G Marshall' I bought the book and he reads this poem and two others.
What I enjoyed is that the poems start with very everyday scenarios: drinking tea on a street in Brighton or being admitted into hospital for an emergency procedure (in other words very relatable) and take us into beautiful or thought provoking worlds hidden just behind the everyday one.
A collection I will savor.
I have interviewed McCullough for my podcast The Meaningful Life with Andrew G Marshall. Listen here https://themeaningfullife.podbean.com...
So what made me dive in? A friend shared his poem Soulcraft which starts: It’s true: there is a light at the centre of my body. McCullough wrote the line in the middle of an emotional breakdown and finished the poem many years later. I was intrigued and invited him on my podcast: The Meaningful Life with Andrew G Marshall' I bought the book and he reads this poem and two others.
What I enjoyed is that the poems start with very everyday scenarios: drinking tea on a street in Brighton or being admitted into hospital for an emergency procedure (in other words very relatable) and take us into beautiful or thought provoking worlds hidden just behind the everyday one.
A collection I will savor.
I have interviewed McCullough for my podcast The Meaningful Life with Andrew G Marshall. Listen here https://themeaningfullife.podbean.com...
August 2, 2020
God, this was good. One of those books that makes you go out and grab every other book the author's done.
June 9, 2024
Interesting little book of queer saphic poems, looking forward to using it for my own poetry inspiration
July 27, 2020
You'll come back to this book over and over. Give it/lend it/read it to the young people you know.
August 14, 2019
Poems from Rialto, Stand, White Review, etc. Here's how "Tender Bodies" starts - "I keep trying to slip away through the crowd/but history won't take its mouth off my body". He does a lot of this - the second clause's meaning is clued by the first clause, though the metaphor complicates. His past (or society's past - the masses) hampers his independence? Perhaps later there's clarification? In the final stanza there's "because I'm not the only one falling, I'm in a crowd,/a loose democracy of descent, velocity with its hands/all over our bodies" which is metaphor-rich. "I" and the crowd return, there's a sense of collective fate. Elsewhere in the book mouths are prone to taste bodies. In "Flamingo" he again takes 2 or 3 image streams and conflates them - "We prefer shallow water,/ gathering in hundreds at night clubs/ by the shore. The powder cakes/ we bring say EAT ME and we do, gobbling up beakfuls till our heads turn/ upside-down". I guess this is what Helen Mort's "synaesthetic" comment on the front cover alludes to - the mixed metaphors, intermixing of tenor and vehicle.
From the start of the book the formats of the poems are: couplets - couplets, each second line indented - sextets - triplets, staggered lines - 2-column, the 2nd column empty on odd lines, the 1st column empty on even lines. It's read left-to-right, not column by column - alternate lines indented - triplets - couplets, using gaps instead of commas. Needless to say, despite the variety of formats, the style of the content barely changes. At times, the combinations of imagery seem similarly random, as if he splats images against the page, hoping enough will stick. They often do. Even in a poem that struggles, there are often worthwhile (or at least surprising) parts.
The Falling/diving and paper themes appears intermittently - "Birds plummet from shelves without bothering to flap, remember nothing" (p.12), "we speed through the air together, reckless paper birds. They will find us with our beaks wide open" (p.15), "Your skilful face punches a giant hole in the day and I jump through it" (p.17), "I will learn to fall with my eyes fixed on the ground" (p.19), "I'm not a bird at all but a man drawn on folded wrapping paper, cut out and pulled into fifteen of myself" (p.64).
I like "Flock of Paper Birds" most. I found much of the book interesting.
From the start of the book the formats of the poems are: couplets - couplets, each second line indented - sextets - triplets, staggered lines - 2-column, the 2nd column empty on odd lines, the 1st column empty on even lines. It's read left-to-right, not column by column - alternate lines indented - triplets - couplets, using gaps instead of commas. Needless to say, despite the variety of formats, the style of the content barely changes. At times, the combinations of imagery seem similarly random, as if he splats images against the page, hoping enough will stick. They often do. Even in a poem that struggles, there are often worthwhile (or at least surprising) parts.
The Falling/diving and paper themes appears intermittently - "Birds plummet from shelves without bothering to flap, remember nothing" (p.12), "we speed through the air together, reckless paper birds. They will find us with our beaks wide open" (p.15), "Your skilful face punches a giant hole in the day and I jump through it" (p.17), "I will learn to fall with my eyes fixed on the ground" (p.19), "I'm not a bird at all but a man drawn on folded wrapping paper, cut out and pulled into fifteen of myself" (p.64).
I like "Flock of Paper Birds" most. I found much of the book interesting.
October 19, 2020
One of my goals this year has been to read at least two poetry books each month and so far I have succeeded in this. I haven’t managed to get to read some of the older classic poetry books that I have been accumulating for a while now, but I have been reading some of the more contemporary offerings that have come my way.
I have read some of Penned in the Margins non-fiction books and really enjoyed them, but have not ventured into their poetry collections until now. I was fortunate to have won this collection through a Costa prize giveaway where I won all 20 books that were shortlisted for the 2019 prize.
The chalk path you bever longed for
zigzags through cowslips no one asked to throng.
Reckless Paper Birds is probably a collection that I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise and reading out of my comfort zone is a good thing. In this McCollough looks at all manner of things from the queer perspective. The subject that are as diverse as origami, stationary, pterodactyls stones and of course, birds.
The poems varied from short stanza to longer and more considered verses. Some of the subject matter was quite intimate and others wrote about the mundane. They all had a touch of the surreal about them too, the way he describes colour stones scattered on a road or being ina crowd falling from a tall building. I thought it was quite a good collection and challenged my outlook.
Three Favourite Poems
Nuthatch
Nervous Systems
Cartoons for Adults
I have read some of Penned in the Margins non-fiction books and really enjoyed them, but have not ventured into their poetry collections until now. I was fortunate to have won this collection through a Costa prize giveaway where I won all 20 books that were shortlisted for the 2019 prize.
The chalk path you bever longed for
zigzags through cowslips no one asked to throng.
Reckless Paper Birds is probably a collection that I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise and reading out of my comfort zone is a good thing. In this McCollough looks at all manner of things from the queer perspective. The subject that are as diverse as origami, stationary, pterodactyls stones and of course, birds.
The poems varied from short stanza to longer and more considered verses. Some of the subject matter was quite intimate and others wrote about the mundane. They all had a touch of the surreal about them too, the way he describes colour stones scattered on a road or being ina crowd falling from a tall building. I thought it was quite a good collection and challenged my outlook.
Three Favourite Poems
Nuthatch
Nervous Systems
Cartoons for Adults
November 22, 2019
Reckless Paper birds is a superb collection of poems. Exuberantly beautiful, sophisticated poems, formal and informal speak of love and loss, homelessness, homophobia. The setting is often in Brighton extolling queer culture, its adventures and disappointments “the streets’ fire and water”. The poems dive into the surreal and take you willingly over the boundary into the depths with absolute clarity. In “Notes for a cheery Post-Apocalyptic Short” for instance, the poem has two strands, the first line of each of the two line stanza’s notes the poet’s arrival in Brighton and how it changes him: “ When I moved to Brighton, my clocks changed their rhythms./Queer men sprang up like careless tulips on every bus.” In the second strand of the poem in italics “Five penises decide to live together under a little blanket/ The names of the penises are Sven, Basil, Rock, Leo and Jorge”. The poem is delightful in its humour and that it marries the surreal with what is already a beautiful poem about arrival, anxiety and coming home. The writing in this collection is always exquisite, here’s the opening paragraph from prose poem “stones” which is one of my favourite poems in the collection: “Rain makes me travel into myself. I lie in bed and notice things: how each fingernail is a screensaver of somewhere I’ve never been, a white hill beneath a giant sky of pink ghosted with cloud, a country my hands have dreamed.”
April 28, 2020
Sometimes I don't understand poetry, don't @ me I studied it at university and it didn't help. I think for me poetry is like art, except that its a representation of human experience with words. In this collection John McCullough is choosing his words carefully to describe queer life in Brighton, some poems are magical, some I'm not sure about and others leave me bewildered. I do know that we need poems and art to reflect the life around us though and this he does well.
July 24, 2020
Reckless Paper Birds by John McCullough grips the poetic microscope tightly and closes into the deepest recesses of body and soul in action... together, not separate. The body is no longer the frame, the encasing for the soul, but is the reality of the soul... McCullough's poems are a heaving sea of past and present pieces - colours, scenes, objects and people - all washed into tides of cresting and crashing waves riddled with sensual shock after sensual shock.
The 'I' figure emerges and fades and re-emerges through the poems, ensuring that all the physical experiences are overlaid with soulful introspection.
Varying poetic formats ensure that no one poem is quite the same as the last; no one wave can ever be the same in the sea that is life.
The energy in the poems is palpable, generated by a lively selection of verbs and tightly paralleled images e.g. Outside, the weather bludgeons photo ops... So many images are crunched together and overlaid, creating a richly mesmerising poetic experience.
This collection of poems dares to portray rarely visited (or even recognised or known) human experiences. And the impact is a pleasant surprise.
MY POETIC REVIEW: Songlines on the Winds
The 'I' figure emerges and fades and re-emerges through the poems, ensuring that all the physical experiences are overlaid with soulful introspection.
Varying poetic formats ensure that no one poem is quite the same as the last; no one wave can ever be the same in the sea that is life.
The energy in the poems is palpable, generated by a lively selection of verbs and tightly paralleled images e.g. Outside, the weather bludgeons photo ops... So many images are crunched together and overlaid, creating a richly mesmerising poetic experience.
This collection of poems dares to portray rarely visited (or even recognised or known) human experiences. And the impact is a pleasant surprise.
MY POETIC REVIEW: Songlines on the Winds
February 24, 2022
“Someone left a dictionary on the wall outside my house
a gift, a threat. The wind rifles through, flumps back,
unsure it has the right first letter.”
I usually read prose but I started reading poetry when my son bought me The Modern Japanese Prose Poem, translated by Dennis Keane. Then my brother-in-law gave us John McCullough’s Reckless Paper Birds and I keep it in the car, reading/re-reading a poem from it when I’ve a spare moment. It’s taken a long time to read every poem because I keep re-reading them. The poems are full of meaning, nuances, triggers and betray a great love of words. My favourite poems are Strange Stories and Outlandish Facts and The Silkworm. A lovely book I shall read again.
a gift, a threat. The wind rifles through, flumps back,
unsure it has the right first letter.”
I usually read prose but I started reading poetry when my son bought me The Modern Japanese Prose Poem, translated by Dennis Keane. Then my brother-in-law gave us John McCullough’s Reckless Paper Birds and I keep it in the car, reading/re-reading a poem from it when I’ve a spare moment. It’s taken a long time to read every poem because I keep re-reading them. The poems are full of meaning, nuances, triggers and betray a great love of words. My favourite poems are Strange Stories and Outlandish Facts and The Silkworm. A lovely book I shall read again.
November 10, 2022
My favorite poems in Reckless Paper Birds are the ones that bring in the everyday, and mundane, or bring me something to look at in totally new--yet true--ways. Of the last category, "Budsong" sings out in particular. The poem begins, "It's hard to ignore a musical penis..." It's about an insect, btw. (Perhaps I should add spoiler alert.) And I'm glad McCullough includes the most gut-wrenchingly mean-hearted (and ignorant) ways society (aka "people") make this world cruel for anyone "different." "Glad," because the writing keeps me close to people. The more "heady" poems don't grab me as much, but all of this book's writing is exquisite.
February 18, 2021
One of the most exciting poetry collections I’ve read in a long time. Richly imaginative and acutely sensitive poetry. McCullough has a voice so boldly, bravely exuberant that some readers might find it lacking in control, and so unique that it lays itself open to parody - but I’ve always thought that’s precisely what distinguishes so many of our greatest, most original writers. This is writing that lives on the edge of every waking moment - whether light, dark, dangerous, sad or joyous - and makes you glad to be alive. I loved it.
January 25, 2025
“Now I exist in the realm of light again, I understand / there are times when it is necessary to approach / a blazing house and enter,times when I must open / my eyes wide and let in every quickening flame.” So ends ‘Stargazer’, my favourite poem from John McCullough’s latest and much-lauded poetry collection Reckless Paper Birds. The poems are queer and sexy and loving, the junction of the personal and political, with cameos from beloved icons like Kate Bush and Lady Gaga, written from a place of such endless depth of sound, colour, image, rage and shimmering, sumptuous defiance.
January 10, 2021
‘I lie in bed and notice things: how each fingernail is a screensaver of somewhere I’ve never been, a white hill beneath a giant sky of pink ghosted with cloud, a country my hands have dreamed.’
McCullough’s work really is a joy for those who like their poetry a little more abstract yet still deeply rooted in emotion and the beautiful mundanity of everyday life.
McCullough’s work really is a joy for those who like their poetry a little more abstract yet still deeply rooted in emotion and the beautiful mundanity of everyday life.
October 18, 2025
I never really know what to say about poetry, mostly because I am very easy to please. I enjoy images, both surreal and domestic, this collection obviously appeals to that. It is a familiar world of social issues, but yet also very light. Thoroughly enjoyed and was really torn between 4 and 5 stars!
December 24, 2019
I enjoyed the book , surreal in parts with a wonderful turn of phrase , for example 'but history won't take its mouth off my body' from Tender Vessels and 'Rain makes me travel into myself' from Stones.The poem Soulcraft is a particular standout for me.
July 28, 2020
A most unique poetic voice. Reckless Paper Birds, winner of the Hawthornden prize for literature for UK book of the year 2020 is a must read addition to anyone's poetry collection. Bravo John McCullough. Magnificent poetry.
October 18, 2021
I enjoyed this. Very openly and joyously queer, which was nice. Lots of quiet moments which paint a richly intimate life of the poet and his narrators. Everything feels very solidly located within an urban setting, which makes a nice change from the usual poetry I read and enjoy.
February 14, 2020
3.5 stars rounded up
June 7, 2020
A surprising, delightful and thoughtful collection. When I think of this book I think of joy, it's so joyful, and quirky.
July 29, 2020
John's magical, beautifully crafted poetry inspires, provokes, and occasionally kicks me up arse. This is what we all need.
Read
March 12, 2021poems about queerness and bodies, nature and lady gaga.
December 27, 2021
An absolute pleasure to read!
March 9, 2022
Fantastic, visceral and tender
March 28, 2023
Four and a half stars
There are some excellent poems here, some good and some very good. There is an occasional miss. It is the best book of his that I've read.
There are some excellent poems here, some good and some very good. There is an occasional miss. It is the best book of his that I've read.
July 6, 2021
This first poetry book I have read. I like it and I did enjoyed it but I didn't love it also I think is would be better if it was bit longer. The cover of book was stunning and It was a quick and easy read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews