Facing the Demon of Noontide is a poetic meditation on the soul in a postmodern setting. This collection summarizes the poet's creative and intellectual preoccupations over the past ten or so years. There are poems dealing with inspiration, personal loss, life in the Australian outback, travel through South East Asia, love, and more. Over the entire collection towers the Demon of Noontide, the ancient specter of ennui and alienation first encountered by the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, and immortalized by the Desert Fathers of Christendom and countless poets and storytellers there-after. Ian uses this specter as a personal symbol for the many faceted postmodern forms of alienation/disenchantment which have interested him since the early 80s. Over forty of the poems in the collection have been published in journals and over the world wide web in prominent literary internet journals such as Vernacular, Australian Writers' Journal, Ozlit, Conspire, Bonfire, Gravity, Grape Poetry, Blur, ACME Poetry and plumbing supplies and Eclectica, among many others.

Excerpt
The Gods abandon us
and we disintegrate
heavy handed
glutted with metaphors
self-recriminating, tying
sisters, brothers, lover
to the gallows.
Look at us,
scratching at the boils
of Nietzsche.