In humid months, at the estate’s unwatched edge,
the boys gather for an after-hours cigarette

before trashing field gates. All boast Reeboks, earrings,
their honed geezer-laughs rev-revving

with the engines of graffiti-tagged bangers.
Customized stereos thump out speed garage,

the race kicking off in a blizzard of chalk dust,
their bouncing charge towards a crooked iron post.

Death and dew ponds can’t stop them while they swerve
past quivering teasel, conquer the bone ridge’s turn,

skeins of wool lifting from gorse as banners
for the night’s whooping, fist-raising winners.

Further off, the crews unite for a slow drift, melt into hills
but leave the empty sky with headlamp trails:

blazing ghosts still performing their necessary work,
still scribbling their names on the dark.

 
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“The Frost Fairs is a moving book with a global and historical scope, dealing with love in many forms from modern transatlantic relationships to hidden gay lives from the past.  Formally deft yet deeply poignant, these poems use language filled with imagination and musicality in their exploration of the possibilities of the human heart. In this immensely enjoyable collection there is an immediacy and tenderness that is outstanding. These vivid moving poems have such a sharp eye for those telling daily details, the particulars. All of this, plus their humor, creates poems that are so solidly tangible and believable. The title The Frost Fairs tells it all. The vulnerability and changeableness that threads our lives, the shifting ice below our feet.” – Lee Harwood

“John McCullough’s poems are never far from wonderful. He shows a lovely mixture of ease and energy, so that there’s a feeling of improvisation even in closed forms. Unpredictable, tender, resourceful—why shouldn’t Wallace Stevens hold hands with Tintin?” – Adam Mars-Jones

“I’ve been reading John McCullough’s poems for several years and never saw him as ‘promising,’ rather, as a verbal magician who had already performed, with a sureness and brio anyone might envy. The startling range of subjects can be partly accounted for by his ability to enter the imaginations of personae from odd walks of life or curious moments in history. He is even able to work out what Michel Foucault’s spoons might have thought about their owner! In poem after poem one senses the encroachment of an exalted vision held at bay by this poet’s commitment to conversational tone and offhand irony. I don’t want to round up the usual superlatives, but I do urge you to read this landmark first volume.” – Alfred Corn

John McCullough’s poetry has appeared in publications including London Magazine, The Guardian, The Rialto, Poetry London, and Magma. He teaches creative writing at the Open University and the University of Sussex. His first collection is The Frost Fairs (Salt, 2011).