Katharina Ludwig, 2026
THE HOLE. AN INSURRECTIONARY POETICS
Could a narrative hole, this moment where the text stops, be a text-mouth? We speak of (written) text having a body, a head(ing), foot(notes), a voice. And if there’s a voice there could be a mouth, too. A mouth that speaks/voices into the body of the text. A speaking hole for once, not a gap, a caesura, a lacuna, a wound, but a hole endowed with a voice—or voices.
At the limits of language, a hole opens and voices meet, channelled from the abyss through temporalities and histories. Jacques Lacan analyses the wounded text; Hélène Cixous whispers to anarchist poet Katerina Gogou; theorist Carla Lonzi, artist Chiara Fumai, and her army of women dissidents invade the symbolic realm of father, state, law, and religion. A canon of disorderly voices from philosophy, psychoanalysis, poetry, and fictional characters converse, connected by the appearance of K. The Hole is an epistolary work written in multiple forms, approaching the unsayable in a jouissant textual body, considering broken narratives and minor literatures through an investigation of (textual) holes, wounds (trauma), and the mouth (voice/language). Poetry operates as strategy of resistance and revolt, against systemic power structures and against closure. Wounds must stay open to speak.
‘A defence of bloody openness; a call for the wounds inflicted by political regimes intent on our destruction to stay as they are, wet and wide; an imagining of a language for such wounds—of words that lick to maintain the site’s moisture; ultimately, a refusal of closure, of the healing we are meant to do (and quickly) as care. Katharina Ludwig’s defiantly wounded text makes a thrilling contribution to the discourse on what it means to have and be a dissenting body in the awful here and now.’
–> Gemma Blackshaw
‘The Hole transforms the epistolary form into a jouissant textual body that refuses to heal. Part subversive theory, part pseudo or anti-intimate memoir, this work functions as an unforgiving mouth—a hiatus where the private and the political bleed into one another. Navigating the raw architecture of the breach, Ludwig weaponises poetry as a strategy of permanent revolt. This is a stunning critical work in disguise, inhabiting the epistolary space only to deconstruct and disseminate it through a narrative of multiple yarns.’
–> Ágnes Lehóczky
Katharina Ludwig is a writer, poet, theorist, artist, and editor based in Berlin and London. Their research and writing addresses queer feminist practices of resistance and revolt. Their writing has been published by 3:AM Magazine, Zeno Press, Tripwire Journal, Strings Magazine, antiphony journal, MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE, and Nightboat Books. A poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Baulk Press in 2026.They are co-editor of VORTEXT, a mail-order poetry magazine.
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At the limits of language, a hole opens and voices meet, channelled from the abyss through temporalities and histories. Jacques Lacan analyses the wounded text; Hélène Cixous whispers to anarchist poet Katerina Gogou; theorist Carla Lonzi, artist Chiara Fumai, and her army of women dissidents invade the symbolic realm of father, state, law, and religion. A canon of disorderly voices from philosophy, psychoanalysis, poetry, and fictional characters converse, connected by the appearance of K. The Hole is an epistolary work written in multiple forms, approaching the unsayable in a jouissant textual body, considering broken narratives and minor literatures through an investigation of (textual) holes, wounds (trauma), and the mouth (voice/language). Poetry operates as strategy of resistance and revolt, against systemic power structures and against closure. Wounds must stay open to speak.
‘A defence of bloody openness; a call for the wounds inflicted by political regimes intent on our destruction to stay as they are, wet and wide; an imagining of a language for such wounds—of words that lick to maintain the site’s moisture; ultimately, a refusal of closure, of the healing we are meant to do (and quickly) as care. Katharina Ludwig’s defiantly wounded text makes a thrilling contribution to the discourse on what it means to have and be a dissenting body in the awful here and now.’
–> Gemma Blackshaw
‘The Hole transforms the epistolary form into a jouissant textual body that refuses to heal. Part subversive theory, part pseudo or anti-intimate memoir, this work functions as an unforgiving mouth—a hiatus where the private and the political bleed into one another. Navigating the raw architecture of the breach, Ludwig weaponises poetry as a strategy of permanent revolt. This is a stunning critical work in disguise, inhabiting the epistolary space only to deconstruct and disseminate it through a narrative of multiple yarns.’
–> Ágnes Lehóczky
Katharina Ludwig is a writer, poet, theorist, artist, and editor based in Berlin and London. Their research and writing addresses queer feminist practices of resistance and revolt. Their writing has been published by 3:AM Magazine, Zeno Press, Tripwire Journal, Strings Magazine, antiphony journal, MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE, and Nightboat Books. A poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Baulk Press in 2026.They are co-editor of VORTEXT, a mail-order poetry magazine.
Next Book ->
264 pages
120 mm x 190 mm
80 mm French flaps (cover)
Format: Paperback
ISBN
978-1-7385079-9-3
Publication date
1 May but pre-order now.
£18.00
The Hole. An Insurrectionary Poetics is interrupted by three opuscules—The Oracle of Lips, The Oracle of Tongue, and The Oracle of Teeth—published in parallel by Cutt Press. Purchase information to follow.
120 mm x 190 mm
80 mm French flaps (cover)
Format: Paperback
ISBN
978-1-7385079-9-3
Publication date
1 May but pre-order now.
£18.00
The Hole. An Insurrectionary Poetics is interrupted by three opuscules—The Oracle of Lips, The Oracle of Tongue, and The Oracle of Teeth—published in parallel by Cutt Press. Purchase information to follow.