Reckless Paper Birds

Winner of the 2020 Hawthornden prize
Shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Poetry Award

Surreal, joyful, political and queer, Reckless Paper Birds is a collection to treasure by Polari Prize-winning poet John McCullough.

These exuberant poems welcome you into a psychedelic, parallel world of ‘vomit and blossom’ where Kate Bush mingles with a weeping Lady Gaga, a ‘fractal coast’ full of see-through things: water, mirrors, glass pebbles.

With a magpie’s eye for hidden charms, McCullough ranges across birdlife, Grindr and My Little Pony while also addressing social issues from homelessness to homophobia.