Pity The Poetics
An anthology of poetry and short stories.
❝In a series of half parable, half imaginatively descriptive direct disclosures, Harley Claes paints the portrait of what it might be like to have art replace the world and put the paint just where the real wounds are. "Boy Spoken For" and "Junkyard Messiah" are metaphorical decodings of society's post 9/11 post every war and shock not only to the U.S. but mainstream society anywhere have suffered and the fragmented consciousness left. This has a peerless lucidity which still gazes from the prosodic heritage of a writer like Leonora Carrington or Benjamin Peret. Exposes some things with the immediacy of a freshly opened cut.❞
John Allen
On Pity The Poetics
Love Inertia
An anthology of authentic love letters and sapphic poems, all inspired by a very real and waning affair.
❝Harley Claes’ poetry potrays a divine and tender melting of romantic ruin. In Love Inertia, she delicately confesses a deep longing for her lovers fierce purity while gently spilling her angelic sonnets into your heart. Claes swansings of her burned romance, bewitching the reader into a white vertigo, heavy and hot in its divinity, while the sanctity which exists in her voice begs us to shadow the angels.
In Love Inertia, we are cradled by Claes’ bloodied dreams- still faintly breathing within the burial grounds of her heart- shattered and resurrected. Though she depicts her core as holy in its stillness, she abandons her true nature for love and allows herself to be devoured, describing this surrender in such a way that leaves the reader haunted, heartsick and breathless.❞
Effy Winter
On Love Inertia: Letters of a Long Lost Love Affair
Venus captives:
a sapphic in hiding
The first in a series based around two twins living in a big abandoned theater as they embark on different decadent adventures soaked in aestheticism.
A Sapphic in Hiding follows one of the twins, Isadora, on a trip into the outside world as she finds romance amongst goddess cults and vintage dressing gowns.
THE HOUSE OF WONDERS
The House of Wonders is a puzzle in the form of an experimental short story. The reader must put together the story with its clues that at the end are further explained. The formatting is a visual expression of the ever-changing mind. It follows the story of a boys journey to understanding the truth.
❝The writing throughout is embedded in abstract poetry, icons of Tibetan Buddhism and allusions to cosmology & philosophy to form an encompassing atmosphere that assures you'll be reading over each page more than once (the writing here is incredibly dense & cryptic in a way that practically requires multiple readings, balancing out the book's relatively short length).
This blend of multimedia experimentation and deeply personal musings on memory & trauma makes for an engrossing, one-of-a-kind odyssey that not only immerses us in its surrealist dreamscape but connects us to its central character so that his journey and our journey are one and the same.❞
-Drake Johnson
On The House of Wonders
_JPG.jpg)
hedonists heaven: 3 poetry collections in one
A culmination of the erotic, obscene and uninhibited ravings of a misfit creative, Harley Claes captures the world of the underground as seen in punk houses, homeless ventures, erotic experiences and sex work. With 68 uncensored poems, the text has a backdrop of images from cult classics like Harmony Korine, Larry Clark, and other iconic directors, as well as photography by Sicily Townley and classic pulp cover women.
In Pacifist in a Punk House, Claes captures the day to day lifestyle of living on the edge in a house full of punks while ensnared in a toxic relationship. In The Holy Erotic Armageddon poems play love games with language encouraged by an outpour of animalistic vice. Exempt from the vulgarity of it’s era, ARMAGEDDON poeticizes the obscene and makes beauty of debauchery. In CIRCA de CABARET, sex work is eternalized through script, capturing the perspective of a vengeful dancer who is addicted to cash flow.
❝Imagine if Persephone was not betrothed to Hades, but seduced him on purpose. Imagine if Aileen Wuornos picked up a pen instead of a gun. Then you can imagine the vision of The Holy Erotic.❞
Tully Lapish
On The Holy Erotic Armageddon
_JPG.jpg)
EX-CUSES, CONSCIOUS AFFIRMATIONS and THE END OF THE WORLD
Written in the throes of a toxic relationship that ran its course many many years ago, Harley Claes encapsulates the feelings of helplessness and confusion experienced while being stuck in an escalating abusive relationship.
TRIGGER WARNING.
.jpg)
Junk poems
A 77 page collection of collage and different aesthetics, with handwritten poems scattered amongst the visuals containing various themes.
You can get a physical copy and cut up your own collages from the visuals and text, or get a digital copy just to experience reading the poems!