Stephen King::Galway Kinnell

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Tiny

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I am making a thread about a poem by Galway Kinnell, called The Book Of Nightmares.
Google that first.

I believe this poem had some kind of influence on King and the whole dark tower series
Just as Browning's poem did. IF NOT... then Browning's poem influenced Kinnell's work.

Ms. Mod a simple question for Mr. King ,
is he aware of "The Book of Nightmares" by Galway Kinnell, 1971 / ? And did it influence him at all, ever (or his wife)

below I am gonna detail the poem (not reprint) and show all the connections and similarities to the dark-tower story
 

Tiny

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First I wanna say that king and his wife were (are) into poetry, they MEET at a poetry class.
(I think) And this guy Kinnell is right up there alley ! Mrs King wrote a great poem about a bear
who had a dream of spring, this dream was so powerful it "created/started" spring. Also,
this Galway guy is a VT new England'er, I think

I have deliberated doing this thread for awhile now, about 2 years.

Mr King started his dark-Tower-uber-project in 1970 ? correct? , that would have been one year
before this poem came out, so "The Lord of the Rings" and Browning's poem would have been
the first influence's , ..,I believe this poem was a strong latter influence .
 

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Ms. Mod
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I am making a thread about a poem by Galway Kinnell, called The Book Of Nightmares.
Google that first.

I believe this poem had some kind of influence on King and the whole dark tower series
Just as Browning's poem did. IF NOT... then Browning's poem influenced Kinnell's work.

Ms. Mod a simple question for Mr. King ,
is he aware of "The Book of Nightmares" by Galway Kinnell, 1971 / ? And did it influence him at all, ever (or his wife)

below I am gonna detail the poem (not reprint) and show all the connections and similarities to the dark-tower story
I don't recall his ever mentioning having read it or it being any influence for the series.
 

Tiny

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The poem opens with a scene of wet fire , of rain on a twig fire.
on 'A path" , A man gathers wet wood on a path that is used by tramps.
and tries to stay warm in the rain.

he talks to the fire, and sings songs; that he used to 'crock' to his daughter
in her nightmares.

then suddenly the scene turn to "a bear" in the distance, on a hill,
...boobs his head back and forth, and sniffs at the air
I dont need to tell most of you the ref' to bears in kings work.
most important I think is when , Roland tell a hypnotized King to
"listen for the song of the turtle and the cry of the Bear"
(the cry of the bear means "listen to your wife")

next there is a girl child in her crib, it goes on for some time about
this child , then at the end of part one , the man (father) "creep's" down to a marsh
a riverbank where the long 'rustle' is of "being and perishing"

He talks of a voice that calls to people "from everything that dies"
calling you 'Sister' When a person hears this voice they will open this book,
even if it is the book of nightmares.
 

Tiny

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the second part if called the hen flower, there is a pic of an old crone holding a dead chicken
over a fire, and what might be rain falling from from the sky.

the hen seems to be in a little trance from "witch grass", this is an obvious connection .
the hen is held upside down and put into a trance but rubbing its neck. it apparently
goes limp and "longs to die" At this point the hen seems to be killed and it 'releases unborn eggs"
its quite gross, if I understand it correctly , there is no mention of the crone, only the pic.
in a convulsion the hen 'lays' thin, yellow unborn eggs that would have been baby chicks.
some eggs are still "inside the open cadaver of the hen"

suddenly he talks about the Northern light and how he can see the
"Cosmos spelling itself out" then he talks about a tree that holds the bones
of a sniper that never "climb down."
then , importantly , to talks about:: a rose that would bloom and nobody would see.
the he goes to a hen house and grabs some hen that were killed by
a coyote, he flings the dead hens into the young pines , there unborn eggs
trail behind them in the air.(quite gross) he says they 'soar into the arms of the Bear.'
 

Tiny

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part three has a picture of a lone man on a barren hill.
using a Dowsing stick, searching for water or God knows what

the story starts with a man looking through shoes at the
store of Salvation . The man reminds me of father Callahan on his
treks across the many american's . there is talk of old men wheezing, coughing
,belching and farting and an Oklahoma men's room and a "dream child'
that might have laughed at this

it talks about the "path" again, the path that "invents itself from jungles of
burnt flesh and ground bone, it is a long mantle of great wanderers .
the only light is pure hunger and pure thirst. it talks about brain waves and a
temporal road

then comes the crone. an old crone who hold her 'Crystal scull to the moon"\
she speaks to 'the man' and says
You live under the sign of the bear,
she calles him and old fool and says
"you will feel all your bones break
and says that he will see holy water that he will never drink



 

Tiny

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this crone of course correspondences to Rhea and her Chrystal scull could be
a scull in her pink ball. and the two lines "You live under the sign of the bear"
" You shall feel all your bones break" I believe shes
speaking about King and even "to" King, (the bear is well known to be Kings wife)

i
 

Tiny

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part four has a picture of a large tower with an open eye at it top.
it may not be a tower exactly but a large pedestal with an eye.

here we have the first ref' also to a tower (that chimes)

there is suddenly a letter inside the poem, written to Galway, from a Virginia
she had a restless night and at some point her mouth moved but it was someone else
talking-- "this voice" said:: "Virginia your eyes shine back to me from my own world" ,
Virgiana thinks "oh god , now I have a demon lover...
 

Tiny

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the very next line talks about a "Blue Juanita " very much like the
Blue Heaven we all know.
it says its a primal garden lost forever,
there is a magazine the reads 'A rural american" . I believe the people at
the blue heaven -tiny-prison had magazines that were way out of date.
then the man (Galway) speaks saying "Mama, you see we only think were here"
then it talks about love-roots being torn up from virginal glades.

the all of a sudden there is a spell/recipe in the poem.
you need a kettle of blue water, that you boil over a twig fire of ash-wood you
grind up your roots (above) throw them in and let marinate , the stop up the
kettle with the thumb of a dead man , re-heat in ash ashes
the let ripen for 40 days in horse dung, in wilderness. Drink. Sleep.
 

Tiny

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when you rise (if you rise) it will be in the year of sothic fragments of
(sothic doesn't seem to be a word )
all the thing unaccomplished of years past. ...this reminds me of Roland's
long sleep at the Golgotha
the next lines are about a dark shore ... blue water, virginal woods.

its sais " I to have eaten the meals of the dark shore "... this sounds like the
lobstrosities Roland had to eat at the beach , after his long night.
then it talks about lovers, friends and lovers, , this sounds a little like Eddie and susanna
falling in love on the beach.
 

Tiny

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then there is another letter from Virginian to Galway


she says she has no one else to turn to "because God is my enemy"
she says many thing then says "forgive my blindness--- yours , in darkness, Virginia"

the there is another letter from IDK who , addressed to "stranger" it says
"Extant in memory by the Blue Juanita (Wah-Nee-Tah) in those letters across space
I guess will be all we will know of one another
"
this sounds kindda like the 'letters King himself sent to Jake at the hotel and Susanna in
the bathroom of the were-insect .
 

Tiny

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the next part is called ::The Hotel of Lost Light

Right from the start it talks about a spider, and its prey inside its web.
it talks about the prey "Shrivels in its abstract stare" it says even nightmares ,
send]out their last horrors ...
die in its stare.


the it talks about the prey , a fly , stops struggling and its wings boom out with the music
of those about to die, ....THEN !!!
It talk about Roland's Horn ,winding down from the Pyrenees ," saves it dark full flourishes for last"
this should be understood by anyone who's read all the books

it turns out the Pyrenees is a rang of mountains between France and Spain.
one of the valley there is called the Valley of Tet,... I SHT u not
 

Tiny

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at the end of this section the man (Galway) says his ascribing these words
in March of the year 70, in his sixteen thousandth night of war and madness.
in the Hotel of Lost Light, under a freeway,
by the light of the joined hemispheres of the spiders eyes
 

Tiny

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the next section starts with two soldiers in a war scene . its called
The Dead shall rise Incorruptible
there is a body burning , the one soldier tell the other
"Lieutenant the corps will not stop burning !" There is a body that burns
on and on the Moses's burning bush .

then it switches to a TV commercial trying to sell you something.
then someone is speaking in the first person

it switches up all the time , just like a dream
 

Tiny

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the text reads

in my twentieth century of trespass ion the Earth
I killed a billion Jews, heretics, gypsy's , Muslims Asians, mystic seekers
...and all for their own good.
I, Christian man, groan out this last will and testament
he gives a long drawn out list of his body parts to go to various people
his Tongue should go to the Secretary of the Dead
with a note to the corpses " Sorry Boys, the killing was one of those things,
...hard to pre-visualize, like a cow being struck by lightning"

the last in the list is his "Chromium testicles' which he leaves as "testimony itself " --He says he does this in
"The twentieth century of my nightmare on Earth"
to his (my) Iron will, fear of love, itch for money and madness
this person (Christian man) sound very much like The ageless stranger, the man in black
, he that exists in all times and all worlds, Randell Flagg, Walter O'dim , etc