Wow... I'm just speechless... I don't know whether this is brilliant ~ or incredibly ~ self-indulgent. In any case, this is classic Stevie- writing a poem in her inimitable surreal impressionism. The individual lines are obtuse and indecipherable, but in a bizarre way, by taking in the poem as a whole, I
get what she is trying to convey. It's almost brilliant how she can blur the lines between dream, reality and even persona, e.g., the way she goes in and out of MLKs body ~ like a ghost... And I like the way she indirectly compares herself as a singer/pianist singing songs of hope to a preacher preaching about hope or a president speaking about hope. Again, very
odd, very self-indulgent... but also kinda brilliant. And I love how she dropped in that line from "Straight Back" oh so effortlessly.
I could just picture Ted Kennedy reading this poem and wondering whether it was the tumor talking...