Sheila K. Smith
Sheila K. Smith has new work forthcoming in RIVER STYX. She is in the process of editing and publishing a small magazine CURLEY and a broadside series bay's broadsides, devoted to the poetry of visionary African American women. Stranger On The Road appeared in EPOCH, Vol. 38, No. 3 in its entirety.
Working Notes, Sheila K. Smith:
Much of my writing is influenced and strengthened by the gospel song. It is not my intention to inhibit anyone's interpretation of the poem. I leave the work to the eye and ear of the reader. "Stranger On The Road" was developed through the sermonette/song "Don't Drive Your Mama Away" by Shirley Caesar. I see "Stranger On The Road" as a collage, as a narrative, as an epic. The poem explores with gospel and jazz music as a thematic/structural base.
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