Nico Arehart
Soft Horror
More copies coming soon!
September 2024, English, 5 x 8 inches, 38 pages, softcover
Design: Alice Wang
In their striking debut, Nico Arehart’s Soft Horror emerges as a visceral journey through the landscape of a crumpled body. This raw collection strips away pretense, exposing the harsh reality of our lived experiences through a lens both unflinching and tender.
From Mexico City’s gritty streets to the intimate confines of addiction’s circuits, Arehart’s verses pulse with the wet heat of existence. Each poem is a gutter, a vein, an intestine—carrying substance and story through the body of the work. Here, childhood memories fester like open wounds, lovers weave blankets from shared scars, and the simplest acts morph into surreal nightmares.
Interspersed throughout are Arehart’s minimalist drawings of racing circuits, subverted with added escape routes. These visual interludes echo the collection’s themes, suggesting both the circular nature of our struggles and the persistent search for ways out.
This collection isn’t just a book of poetry—it’s a punk album in verse, a survival manual for navigating life’s subtle cruelties, and a testament to the beauty that can be found in decay. It’s an experience that will challenge you to find routes of escape from the soft horrors of your own making even as it questions whether escape is possible, or even desirable.
Nico Arehart is a queer writer, artist, and programmer based in Brooklyn, NY. They studied at CalArts graduating in 2013. Their work has appeared in numerous group shows and solo exhibitions. Arehart is currently at work on a new collection of sci-fi short stories, a graphic novel about AI, and a survival horror video game.
Interspersed throughout are Arehart’s minimalist drawings of racing circuits, subverted with added escape routes. These visual interludes echo the collection’s themes, suggesting both the circular nature of our struggles and the persistent search for ways out.
This collection isn’t just a book of poetry—it’s a punk album in verse, a survival manual for navigating life’s subtle cruelties, and a testament to the beauty that can be found in decay. It’s an experience that will challenge you to find routes of escape from the soft horrors of your own making even as it questions whether escape is possible, or even desirable.
Nico Arehart is a queer writer, artist, and programmer based in Brooklyn, NY. They studied at CalArts graduating in 2013. Their work has appeared in numerous group shows and solo exhibitions. Arehart is currently at work on a new collection of sci-fi short stories, a graphic novel about AI, and a survival horror video game.