Zchenk Among Demons

Zchenk Among Demons blossomed out of hard and exciting work in esoteric philosophy and poetry during the years 1984-87, most of which study was guided by Elizabeth Sewell. Together we explored the "e;invisible"e; tradition running, in her reading, from Plotinus through to Yeats. The pulse of Demons? A multiplicity of indirections-voices, actors, masks; genres, styles, methods. Layer after layer of self-removal. And how to prosecute philosophy as a made thing, and thus as poetry? "e;An impossible book,"e; a reviewer might say, of "e;post-Wittgenstein neo-Platonism."e; A book of aphorisms, poems, arguments, allegories, vignettes, that is itself finally a ficcin. And then there was, and is, the aspiration "e;To Be a True Poem"e; (Milton, via Sewell) by writing oneself into it. By being written by one's words, by what one has written, is writing. That much intimacy. A matter of voice. But more than voice-a matter of body. And thus as body, minded. A matter of eros, as Plotinus had taught. And so Demons is finally that-eros and its embodiment.