As intrinsically linked as Laurel and Hardy, both subjects have fascinated writers and artists for millennia and for good reason: the peak of joy and the deepest of despair. The creation of new life and the end of old life.
No wonder it makes for great capital.
Describing himself as a poet and filmmaker who creates "...literature, film and poetry of a transgressive nature...", Craig Podmore has been releasing books in some shape or form since 2009. Ugly, visceral works that make the reader want to bathe in Clorox afterwards, but that leave a tiny bit of filth in the memory. An early collection of poetry called Toilet Mouth featured a photo of Nancy Spungen's corpse lying under a sink and, unsurprisingly, the collection was as grimy and abrasive as the cover.
Then again, this shouldn’t be a surprise considering he once told Anthony McIntyre that he has always believed:
…that art has to be confrontational, literature/poetry…is one of the finest tools to attack society with, art is about confronting the norms, socio-politics and other societal deformities…literature shouldn’t be safe. It should be dangerous.
It’s been a few years since Your Misery is for Entertainment Purposes Only and now we get this new collection of poems and stories which Podmore has described as:
…an onslaught, an assault, an examination of the futility of modern man. The writings within depict that the enslaved body, the salacious flesh we all desire is prostituted into the construct of materialism and consumption.
Lofty heights to reach for, but Podmore does it.
The opening essay sets out the terrain: poets are pornographers, writing is fornication and we should abandon all pretence and indulge. Not quite ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’ but it carries out the same role.
Next up are the poems, most of which juxtapose acts and language of violence alongside acts and language of sex, thus creating a feeling of griminess and furthered with the narrator brking out instructions a la Michel Gira.
Certain poems like ‘Auschwitz, Sponsored by Chanel’ will undoubtedly upset the literal minded but those who get irony will understand the point about history, atrocities and murderous ideologies repurposed by fashion and pop culture (look at Kneecap’s postmodern pastiche of Irish republicanism and spide behaviour as a recent tangential example). The short stories and mini play continue the feeling of squalor, although there are moments of humour present like the priest in ‘An Intercourse with Violence’
Not a book for everyone but for those who love confrontational writing, you’ll wallow in the grottiness of it all.
Craig Podmore, 2025, The Capitalcyst. Antiseptic Press ISBN-13: 978-1326610654.
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
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