Lilith's Demons

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Women's Studies. In the Jewish tradition, Lilith's punishment for rejecting Adam and disobeying God is to give birth to one hundred demons at twilight every night. These demons travel the land, killing newborns and wreaking havoc, until the sun rises anew. Julie R. Enszer reimagines Lilith and her demons for her third collection, LILITH'S DEMONS (A Midsummer Night's Press, 2015), giving them their own voices to speak to women of the world. Recast as a contemporary embattled woman, Enszer's Lilith is fiercely independent and determined as well as vulnerable, exposed. Her demons bemoan their obligation to kill, carrying the weight of such actions every minute, every hour of their time on earth. These poems offer a new mythology for women, reclaiming what is useful from the old and boldly striking new territory where women and their demons can be powerful. No longer dependent on God or man, Lilith and her demons convey a contemporary feminist cosmology.