Cold Coffee : Forum : Behind the Sandman


Behind the Sandman

16 Years Ago


I wrote this letter to a couple of you in response to the many reveiws I recieved on "The might of the sandman" I thought after writing it I should share these thoughts with you all. So here it is:

 

Maybe I was being over critical. The outpouring of appreciation on this piece has been unexpected.

The use of a the lords prayer was necessary in my mind partly because I felt the need to tie the meat of th poem to a begining most of us would be familiar. In my reasearch for my novel Tuckers Creek I did a lot of research on O.B.E, astral projection, lucid dreams, near death, spiritualism, christianity, Jewish beliefs, voodoo, rootwork, and Creole influence and heritage in Louisiana. In doing all that study my mind was opene to the many ways the subconcious mind works and found common grounds to known and repected religons.

I wanted to bring to concious light as many of those elements I've mentioned and weave them around that common ground most of us know in the lords prayer.

It appears it worked to some extent. I also experiented by building in the poem a ryhming base of words and and flow which for me was oneof the toughest aspects of righting this piece. I asa rule of thumb do not care for ryhming poems. they seem cat in the hatish to me which is great when I read to my eight year old but for my own personal taste doesn't wok as well. So I tried tomake it ryhme in such a way that the poem kept its dark and mystical presence while ryhming in flow.

I hatingly admit to know little about stanzas and the other poetic terms I've heard some of you more enamered writers use even when describingmy own work. If I have suceeded in creating a poetic work that follows a format thats been in existance then it was sheer coincidence.

I write poetry like I play the piano, I do it by ear. 

I can't read music any better than I can properly explain what a stanza is.

So thank you once again and maybe I'll stub my toe on another poem or two down the road.

Dave