This is a funny, playful, audacious yet serious artist’s book which gathers together all the material generated by my Homosexual Death Drive Poundbury project.
The book is for anyone who wants a creative, alternative queer and Othered take on the soft and hard power of monarchy. It exposes the massive gap between royal optics and what they actually do.
In Poundbury: A Queer Tour of Monarchy, I adopt the role of The Groom of the Stool, or royal arse-wiper.
In Poundbury: A Queer Tour of Monarchy, I adopt the role of The Groom of the Stool, or royal arse-wiper.
Together we trip through Poundbury’s history, ideology, use of pseudo-tradition, greenwash and social control.
I’ll show you some of Poundbury’s people and reveal how they resist royal power-tripping.
I argue that Poundbury is currently a death zone that could be redeemed as a postmodern theme park for queers and Others.
In a bizarre twist, I am invited to meet Camilla at Buckingham Palace – true! Read all about it!
Poundbury includes original research, personal reflection, drawings, poetry, experimental writing and AI-generated texts. It is shaped by queer theory, feminism, neurodivergence and the social model of disability, working class identity, decolonisation, environmental activism and anarchism. Its guiding principles are: beauty, intelligence, humour, integrity, the liberation of all beings.
NULLA MONARCHIA INFANTEM!
Read an excerpt (.pdf 2.3mb)
Buy now
Paperback 2023
224 pages, black and white illustrations
Price: £12 + postage and packing via Royal Mail
Publisher 33editions
ISBN: 978-0-9935320-6-1
Please note: international Royal Mail is slow so feel free to contact me before you buy if you want a faster option.
Digital eBook edition, 2023
ePUB
Price: £4.49
Publisher: 33editions
ISBN: 978-0-9935320-7-8
Reader’s Feedback
“Sensational!”
“Marvellous and topical.”
“Honestly, it is genius.”
“Charlotte Cooper has written and self-published this AMAZING book. I love it because it is like all the things we love – social critique (in a huge nuanced way), modern history, memoir, and so original and wonderful – reading it feels like finding something so amazing that you didn’t dare to wish could exist. I personally love it because it is deliciously delivered and fits with my interest in pre-planned and explicitly ideologically driven urban landscapes + anti colonialism + queer bodies disrupting and dissolving the power of yt heterohellscapes (aka monarchy).”
“Today’s barefoot read is so great. Charlotte Cooper (aka Homosexual Death Drive which is/used to be the name of her band too) is one of the few queer zinesters and creative trouble makers from the 90s who is still making unapologetically dissident queer work, in the political and cultural meaning of the word. She’s never stopped poking at things in the best way, whether that’s the Olympics or, as here, the idea and practice of royalty. “An artist’s book for anyone who wants an alternative queer and Othered take on the soft and hard power of monarchy”, this is a glorious series of reflections, personal experiences, experimental writing, righteous rudeness and saying it as it is, and is so funny and also strangely moving in parts. A testament to the kind of queer writing that has been lost to a kind of neo self-help earnestness, I miss this kind of smart playfulness so much.”
“I’ve read your book twice, as there is so much nuance and depth of analysis which I might have overlooked on first reading. You make the reader laugh and then make them think about the wider social and economic implications of the monarchy. You blend the personal and political most powerfully throughout. The format of using brief descriptions and free verse works really effectively. I found reading on became compulsive. I wanted to know what perspective was being presented next. I can see how closely your book will link to your performance skills, bringing the whole emotive experience together. […] The police arrests of ‘Not my King’ protesters plays right into your narrative! I think your powerful challenge, using Poundbury as a case study, is most topical and should be widely read. So glad to have received the book.”
Listen to episode 85 of Matthew Blunderfield’s Scaffold podcast for the Architecture Foundation in which we discuss this project.