Silesian Gothic

Silesia is the postindustrial Rust Belt of Poland, where coal mining used to be king. In Anouk Herman’s collection Silesian Gothic, it is haunted by the ghosts of socialist architecture, spectres of abandoned Catholic girlhood, and the disappearances of bad boyfriends. A mythology of youth lost and illusions shattered, exploring family, sex, longing and our lives online. They write ‘the teenage girl inside me wants sour cream and blood’, yet also play with adult identities, writing ‘I’m…anouk edward gierek’, in reference to the former Polish communist party leader. Herman asks: What does it mean to write the past back into life? To inhabit a more idealistic time when ‘houses and cities have just been imagined anew’? 

Roving the landscapes of their youth, Herman weaves together scenes from Katowice and the former Yugoslavia, and filters them through their unique voice, where queer sensibilities and nostalgic girlhood meet. Herman situates themselves in conversation with the queer poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Sexton, referencing and riffing off their work, offering a familiar entry point for our dreamlike encounter with these verses. Illustrator Tyna Tokars’s sketches – the scattered contents of a makeup bag, gravestones, and anime-inspired girls, loving and fighting – underscore the intimacy and intensity of Herman’s poetry.