Mary Katharine Tramontana | Do not write poems likening his body to god

About

Do not write poems likening his body to god

Mary Katharine Tramontana

Book launch and photography exhibition

Opening with reading, drinks & music: Friday, 10 April, 2026, 6:30–9:30PM 

Exhibition closing with reading, drinks & music: Saturday, April 18th, 6:00–9:00PM

Exhibition duration: Friday, April 10–Saturday, April 18, 2026

Location: About Books, Linienstr 151, Berlin, Germany 10115 (Mitte)

Do not write poems likening his body to god is writer (New York Times, Esquire, Playboy) and photographer (Dazed, Art Daily, Photography Now, Siegessäule, The Berliner) Mary Katharine Tramontana’s second book of poetry, accompanied by original photography. The follow-up to her debut collection of poetry, Serious Pleasures: Poems of Lust and Longing, a Dazed Review ‘Best best flesh-baring photo story of 2025’, the series began as a letter she wrote to seduce an incapacitating on-again, off-again lover—a glamorous and mysterious Milanese neighbor.

Desire can give us energy to change our lives, or it can incapacitate us. It can get us closer to ourselves, or it can obliterate our sense of self. Making art can be a way of doing something with our sexual longing, but at what point does writing on desire become a cyclical self-torture, keeping the suffering we had set out to assuage alive?

Do not write poems likening his body to god—found now in Tate Modern and Tate Britain's bookshops in London-based art and literary journal Erotic Review—is also being adapted to an ErikaLustFilms short film to be released in 2026. Signed limited-editions of both of Tramontana's handsewn collector's art books will be available at the event.

Praise for Mary Katharine Tramontana’s Serious Pleasures (2024):

‘Pleasure courses through every line’

—DAZED

‘Annie Ernaux-esque’

—DAZED

‘In Mary Katharine Tramontana’s Serious Pleasures, poetry is hyper-explicit—both sensual and intellectual—and in that sense closest to Pasolini’s destruction and reaffirmation of poetic sublimation. Her poetics of submission give the reader the option of experiencing subjecthood in either position’ 

—Toni Hildebrant, editor of PPPP: Pier Paolo Pasolini Philosopher

‘Against the backdrop of a new era of sexual regression across the political spectrum, Tramontana’s poetry and photography remind us that sex is a fundamental way of being human. Reclaiming her eroticism from her Catholic upbringing and global, secular, anti-female sexuality dogma, her corporeal self-portraits offer a queer perspective on art history’s legacy of the male artist desiring the female body.’

—Photography Now

‘Intimate, thought-provoking imagery challenges societal taboos while celebrating sexual autonomy’

—Fotografiska Berlin
 

We are excited that this event will take place in our much larger New Space at Linienstr. 151 (across the street from our former location)! More soon! See you there!

Venue:

about_bookshop

Linienstr. 151

10115 Berlin

www.about-bookshop.de

Mary Katharine Tramontana is a journalist, photographer, poet, and the author of Serious Pleasures (2024). Her work on sexual politics and art, appearing in The New York Times, Esquire, Playboy, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere, has sparked ongoing international conversation. She’s co-curated and collaborated with Reina Sofía, the Spanish Film Archive, WILZIG Museum, silent green, Schwules Museum, Arsenal Institute, Academy of Arts Berlin, and others. With two solo shows in Berlin last year, and five group shows in Miami, Berlin, and Savannah, she has given multiple talks on sexuality, culture, and queerness. The recipient of a Frieze writing bursary, she’s also worked as a sex research assistant at Kinsey Institute. Her first non-fiction book, Lust, co-written with Erika Lust, is forthcoming by Henry Holt & Co. (Oct 2026) in the US, and also in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Catalonia, and Germany. She lives in Berlin.