The imagination, however, moves with its own tidal flow. Films, even the best of them, freeze fiction—anyone who has ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and then reads Ken Kesey’s novel will find it hard or impossible not to see Jack Nicholson’s face on Randle Patrick McMurphy. That is not necessarily bad… but it is limiting. The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its own particular way.

Finally, I write for only two reasons: to please myself and to please others. In returning to this long tale of dark Christianity, I hope I have done both.

Stephen King

October 24, 1989

Outside the street’s on fireIn a real death waltz .Between what’s flesh and fantasyAnd the poets down hereDon’t write nothin at allThey just stand back and let it all beAnd in the quick of the nightThey reach for their momentAnd try to make an honest standBut they wind up woundedNot even deadTonight in Jungle Land .Bruce SpringsteenAnd it was clear she couldn’t go on!The door was opened and the wind appeared ,The candles blew and then disappeared ,The curtains flew and then he appeared ,Said, "Don’t be afraid ,Come on, Mary ."And she had no fearAnd she ran to himAnd they started to fly …She had taken his hand …" Come on, Mary ;Don’t fear the Reaper! "Blue Öyster CultWHAT’S THAT SPELL?WHAT’S THAT SPELL?WHAT’S THAT SPELL?Country Joe and the Fish

THE CIRCLE OPENS

We need help, the Poet reckoned .