The Dead Hermes Epistolary, by Slippery Elm

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“This is the necromantic power of love, revealed to us at last by Dead Hermes. And by raising the ghosts of the past we are given visions of the future…”

In the nine missives which comprise The Dead Hermes Epistolary, trickster poet Slippery Elm leads the reader away from the pale world of dying meaning into the ever-living dream world of our forgotten past.

Whispers of wet forests, conspiracies of witches and indigenous elders, the erotic lyric of the troubadours, the arguments of Sephardic poets, Arabic mystic texts on agriculture, perfumed Andalusian gardens where kings bow before the power of beauty, the dead dancing with the living at a wedding: all these are the ghosts which lead us to the transgressive and liberating magic of Hermes Chthonios.

The Dead Hermes Epistolary is a work of deep poetic beauty and an act of soul retrieval for the revolutionary spirit, lost as it’s become in the pale half-light of the internet and Empire’s relentless war against meaning. Slippery Elm deftly awakens the knowledge hidden in places we’ve forgotten to look, all the while awakening in the reader the deep power of words and the profound magic in radical friendship.

(This is for the print edition. For the digital edition, see this link)

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“This is the necromantic power of love, revealed to us at last by Dead Hermes. And by raising the ghosts of the past we are given visions of the future…”

In the nine missives which comprise The Dead Hermes Epistolary, trickster poet Slippery Elm leads the reader away from the pale world of dying meaning into the ever-living dream world of our forgotten past.

Whispers of wet forests, conspiracies of witches and indigenous elders, the erotic lyric of the troubadours, the arguments of Sephardic poets, Arabic mystic texts on agriculture, perfumed Andalusian gardens where kings bow before the power of beauty, the dead dancing with the living at a wedding: all these are the ghosts which lead us to the transgressive and liberating magic of Hermes Chthonios.

The Dead Hermes Epistolary is a work of deep poetic beauty and an act of soul retrieval for the revolutionary spirit, lost as it’s become in the pale half-light of the internet and Empire’s relentless war against meaning. Slippery Elm deftly awakens the knowledge hidden in places we’ve forgotten to look, all the while awakening in the reader the deep power of words and the profound magic in radical friendship.

(This is for the print edition. For the digital edition, see this link)

Slippery Elm

Slippery Elm is the author of The Dead Hermes Epistolary. His poetry and prose in English and Spanish have appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies in both Europe and North America. He has performed as a part of flamenco groups in Europe, Africa, and North America, in courtly settings, as well as in the streets, by hearth corner, and under leaf. He is the editor and translator of the poetry anthology Your Death Full of Flowers and the author of two pocket poetry books. He compliments his poetry and dance by studying Arabic and Hebrew philologies.

  • “The letters of Slippery Elm are the plumage of a nightingale who soars high, singing the lyrical anarchism of Spain. Language is the means of struggle, of subversion, satire and celebration, in a voice that turns from ecstatic to erotic. As they lift the groaning bones of Franco from his grave, the facist myth that elides the history of Al-Andalus crumbles to dust. Slippery Elm plays his part, sings the hidden song of lost Lorca, whose duende weeps as a spring more precious than gold, evokes a world that was and is, and is yet to come. An adventurer, whose path has all the light stepping and emphatic stamp of the flamenco dancer, whose dancing ground is strewn with poetry, a lover who writes with candour and beauty. It is a rare and precious thing to find a book which talks to the heart, and it takes a troubadour to perform such a miracle.”

    —Peter Grey (author of Apocalyptic Witchcraft, Lucifer Princeps, The Red Goddess)

  • Published : 1 December 2019
    Formats : Paperback, EPUB
    Pages : 254
    Size : 6 in x 9 in or 152 mm x 229 mm