Arno Hermann Oscar Alfred Holz (26 April 1863 – October 1929) was a German naturalist poet and dramatist.

He established contacts with the Berlin naturalist club Durch where he met famed writer Gerhart Hauptmann.

Holz and Schlaf attempted to apply the theoretical postulate of "consistent naturalism" in their joint works, Papa Hamlet and Die Familie Selicke, plays published under the pseudonym Bjarne P. Holmsen (premiered 1890 in Berlin and Madeburg).

The demand that art should be an accurate reproduction of reality lead to new experimental modes of expression – for example, the "second by second style" (German: Sekundenstil) in which social deprivation is described in exact minute detail in real time.

In 1896 Holz commenced work on a dramatic cycle, Berlin inspired by Zola's series of novels, Rougon-Macquart.

These late dramas failed with contemporary theater audiences; the book editions, in spite of numerous revisions, found few buyers.

A typographical feature of the poetry is that all the lines are centered on an axis giving both a right and left ragged edge (common in the modern day of computers but rare at the time).

The poems incorporated in the volume's, design, subject, and layout celebrations of Baroque eating and erotic events.