Review by Eric Page
This fourth collection of poems from Brighton poet John McCullough impresses. Circled by grief and seaside living as they are, like hungry wolves waiting the gutting flame of the protective fire to go out so they can rush you and sink unforgiving rhyme into hard mind bone.
He’s a dark bird is McCullough, setting his words aflight, leading us on, flying out across expansive landscapes of his mind then slamming us up against a wall, all beak, claw and frantic flapping wings. I’m Tippi Hedren on Hove seafront, the poet’s insistent breath on my neck, panting words, stealing ice cream. Swoon. It’s an unsettling read, threaded with humour that makes me laugh in spite of myself.
His metaphors continue to inspire and worry at you, exploding like textural origami in the mind. Phones become tigers, plankton twists into glowing agonised terror, he asks us to step inside mind and skin to feel first relationships, old scars, hope, joy and sadness – shared with us with proud savage lines. Oscar Wilde cavorts with worms, Noel Coward whispers vital encouragement to live hard, fast, wild, the rain dissolves whole architectures and coats regress to phantoms. McCullough is lush.
It’s everyday but dizzy like staggering along a busy well-known street with no one seeing you. The poems feel so simple, but their deft heave of emotion belies great craft and engineering in these apparently simple lines. I image the poet with chisel, picking out their words from inside a quarry block. He turns a walk along the beach into a worrying Orpheum mediation on goose barnacles.
His writing hangs about my memory, sidling up at night, teasing me with a half-remembered line, looking for a way in. One poem addresses the danger of books, of phrases kept in lead lined mental boxes of radioactivity lurking in the notebooks of researchers. Brighton (and Hove) is a living character in this book, the very filling of the walls of great Regency terraces given over to a poem all its own, asking us to think about what’s behind our own crumbling facades and reassuring us.
Poetry should shift the mind, hard nudge it into a different place, leap chasms of reason in a single simile and blur the boundaries of emotions, places, physical states. Panic Response does this in a myriad of ways but with McCullough’s trademark brilliance. His cocky tart style of understated elegance serves us raw poetry. Wrapped in clever balanced prose, allowing us to enter the poet’s mind with ease, but occasionally wishing we’d not stepped across that portal.
His queerness is unequivocal, but don’t let that put you off – these poems sing of the body electric, harking of love commonplace and the pain we all share, these words grasp at meanings beyond print and text, and the trembling poet’s careful placing of them, deliberate one after another, trusting us to follow their lead, bring great reward. Do I gush, then I gush..
This is superb LGBTQ+ poetry, poems from a queer voice of the highest quality, a book to return to, to open at random, to let into your mind to cavort. McCullough is also (and I’ve said this before) a bloody good read.
Recommended
Out now, paperback £7.99
For more info or to buy the book see the publisher’s website here:
The second half picked up the speed, a memorable coming out scene on the phone between one of our main characters and his Nan, a softening of the brittleness which allows the heart of the play to shine through. The first act felt a little too long and that must be the most irritating opening five minutes of any play I’ve seen, well done writers!
Kent serves up well loved classics in a classic way, romantic, directly, in their original language, La Bohème is sung here in Italian, with surtitles above the stage (although these aren’t visible from the rear rows of the stalls). The live orchestra, the National Orchestra of Moldova is conducted in a lively way by Nicholae Dohotaru adding to the romance and vintage feel of these performances, the theatre royal removing the front few rows of seats to accommodate the big, robust members of the orchestra. My companion this evening adored Pucci and was delighted by this live intimate rendition from the orchestra, giving a real feel of connection between the musicians, singer, and audience.
The night ended with a rather sober rendition of the Ukrainian National Anthem, sung by all the performers, and musicians and brought the Theatre Royal audience to its feet in a show of dignified solidarity for the communities, and families, of the performers devastated by the current war.
Author Henry Fry centres Danny’s increasingly erratic choices in the narrative allowing us to explore with him, enjoy the fall out, laugh at the raw painful awfulness of it and wallow in the reflective dialogue of his endless therapy and patient loving friendships. It’s a cool narrative engine and whilst this is often done in gaylit, it’s not often done through such a sex positive, Homocelebratory, queer joy prism, offering the LGBTQ+ reader a solidly affirming read and a totally accepting story of self-discovery, queer experiences and the value and accepting dependability of found and chosen family.
Queer, cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, androgynous, maverique, intergender, genderfluid. Louie and ‘Cat’ journey with us through the world of gender—not claiming any ultimate authority, just careful considerate handholding as we explore. Gender is tricky to understand because it’s a social construct intersecting with our identity, via class, race, age, religion. Binary: male/female genders have been supreme for a long time, but Läuger also looks at the historical context of gender and how that has changed, across cultures, and time. It’s clear to most people that very little in life is Binary, gender especially so. That’s what this book is about: figuring out what gender means, one human being at a time, and giving us new ways to let the world know who we are.
The illustrations are diverse offering respectful visual inclusion to this exploring of our bodies and self, with care to represent different ethnicities, cultural identities, and size. Along with offering up interviews and deeply personal narratives from people who talked with the author about gender identity, and what that means to them.
This is a superb visceral compassionate and raging memoir that brings a fierce focus onto the personal and political lives of Miss Major and shows how living without fear or shame, supporting communities and fighting injustice can begin about radical sustainable change. She don’t give a fuck, tells it like it is, and exhilarates with her forthright hard won wisdom. The books unfolds as a series of questions from Toshio Menorek, which roam across the rich tapestry of her life, warts and all, sharing shocking, challenging and heartwarming insights into this tremendously affectionate person.
Born on the Chicago South Side but raised on the streets and battered, buffeted and bemused by many medical, mental or corrective institutes and interventions Miss Mayor confounds them, and their labels, boxes and outcomes and offers us real insight into what a life well lived looks like.
Miss Mayor offers us hope, through her own Black Trans Mature lens, but wraps it in the guise of ourselves, bound together by common ideas, not our complex intersections of identity, class or race but by our needs and community duties to each other. To care, to learn, to listen, to offer a hand, to find dignity and humility, and to be the monster who rages at the people who come to harm us, purposefully or by ignoring us. But most importantly by stepping up and just doing, doing the things that need doing, the everyday things, the longer term committed things, the hard things, but doing them, not passing the buck or turning the other cheek.
Strong clear noncompromising voices like Miss Major don’t come along that often and when they do, we better listen, because by telling us their past, pointing out the road they’ve carved to allow the glorious procession of themselves to roll on, they show us the way to a better future.
From the off the cast own the stage, giving full throttle performance and working within the compact confines of the Theatre Royals stage to pull out convincing feeling of a High School full of movement, activity and stories. This is a deeply dark and twisted story of bullying, murder, and dealing with malevolent peer pressure all given a bright primary colour candyfloss coating. I’d not seen the film or the musical before so was wide eyed at the narrative surprises and the plot development. What gory Gothic fun!
If you can get a ticket, get one and enjoy this desperately dark, deeply ironic, savagely sarcastic, and oddly likable musical. As I wandered off into the crisp march evening air, through a really happy chatty and entertained crowd I realised I’m now a huge Heathers fan!
In careful non-judgmental detail the author, 
The first half felt overlong (at 65mins) , but this was partly to do with the distinctly low energy of the performers and some indistinct dialogue due to the soft and slippery drawl of these southern accents, some softer and less slippery than others. Their gossipy interactions and gently social teasing mapping out the small town they all live in, and some yearn to escape from.
The second half picked up the pace, with a much stronger focus on the narrative , allowing some of the sharper lines to land properly and the laughter pick up.
The audience loved this show, a very full house enjoying both the familiar cast and the familiar lines from the film, most worked into this production, but oddly given a vastly different focus. Only Harriet Thorpe’s Ouiser given a delightful thumping grumpy presence having the same heft of dialogue.
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