Untitled Love
 

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Revision #2


Untitled Love

“Keep going,”
is what she said to me
as I faltered with the words.
I hadn’t practiced the song
hard enough;
hadn’t memorized it
like I should have;
was unsure
if it was even finished yet.

But that day I took a chance
as we sat on the edge of the bed
and I began:
As I come up to the top of my life...
but stumbled over syllables,
fumbled the chords,
waylaid by my own voice.
caught in the light of my confession,
overwhelmed by it's flood-lit space of grace.

"Keep going" she said again and smiled.
I didn’t know she wasn’t listening
to the words, but to my trembling voice; felt
the throbbing of my quavering soul's love song.



EDITS

Title was "Unfinished"

S2L4: was "You are everywhere I go." Changed to "As I come up to the top of my life..." which is the actual first line of the song.

S2L7-8 were:
self-conscious,
overwhelmed

S3 was
Keep going is all she said.
I didn’t know she wasn’t listening
to the words, but only to my trembling
voice, my quavering soul's song.


-----------------------------

ORIGINAL
Untitled

Keep going, keep going…
is what she said to me
when my lips faltered as I sang
the third verse of a love song
I’d written for her. I didn’t know
she wasn’t listening to the words
but only felt the quiver in them
and how articulate the trembling voice
spoke for the inarticulacy of the heart.




Edits
L2: was "that's what she said"
L3: "lips" was "words" was "confidence"
L4: added "love"
L8: "articulate" was "articulately"
L9: "spoke" was "speaks"
Title was "Untitled Love"



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Jim -

This is well below the quality of your usual efforts.

At a minimum, you should consider dropping the last two lines. The articulate/inarticulate thicket is a strange construction, particularly when it follows someone who isn't listening.

JB

I like the first half of this poem very much, but I found myself tripping over the clunky polyptoton of “articulate/inarticulacy.” The grammar is a bit fuzzy in the last four lines, too.
It might bring it into focus if you use a series of present participles to hold the end together— something like
. . . I didn’t know
she wasn’t listening to the words
but only feeling the quiver in them
and how eloquent the trembling voice
speaking for the muteness of the heart.

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Revision posted.

Thanks John, Glenn.

John, You are right about the final two lines, I think. I was trying to indicate what Van Morrison said about music being "the inarticulate speech of the heart."

It's a poem I wrote ten or so years ago. Now that I read it in the light of your comments I can see what you mean. It's lackluster at best. But there is a beating heart in it somewhere that I want to reveal. It is a simple love poem.

"The articulate/inarticulate thicket is a strange construction, particularly when it follows someone who isn't listening."

I think you may have missed the heart of the poem. The woman is not listening to the words of the song. The words are superfluous. Instead, she is captured by the quiver in the man's voice as he stumbles through playing/singing the song to her about his love for her. To her, that's the song: him. She wants him to "keep going" because she sees/hears the vulnerability of the singer and, although he stumbles, she is enamored by the effort and the love behind it.


Glenn, (see above, and) I will find a different way to say what I'm trying to say with the final two lines. I agree the grammar is suspect in the final lines. I did tinker quite a bit with it but, as you point out, there is something off about it. I will do what I can to smooth it out using your suggestions as a guide. I want it to be written with the lightest touch.

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Jim,

I think you have something really good here and the key to bring it forth is to allow your feelings to write the poem. But poetry has its demands and the poet is at its service. First person is not lifting; it is grounding the wonder of it.

What I see here is a variation on Lorca's notion of 'duende.' Please, don't lose the original.

You may wish to stick to memories verbatim, but poetry has its demands and one of them is the surrender to it, not too different from duende. It could be said that both are zealous demiurges.

I hope I won't come back and wish I hadn't posted until after a little rumination. ha

~mignon

Hello, Jim,

I'm smiling; you're fast..

Too fast. I asked that you save the original because that version does a better job transferring emotion.

I'm back, to correct myself starting here, having deleted a couple of lines.

I'm excited for you on this one.. More later,

~mignon

Oops!

Wrong thread.

Hi Jim,

The closing reference to the sea in the revision seems to come from nowhere, and consequently, for me, is unsatisfying. I'd suggest either setting it up with some more sea- or sailing-related imagery earlier in the poem, or just dropping it.

Maybe it's fine in American English, but I'd expect "clearly" not "clear". The latter sounds odd to me.

"tripped over" in the revision seems more prosaic, closer to a stock phrase, and to present less of a clear image, than more specific "my lips faltered"

In first version, the specificity of mentioning the third verse works better for me than the more general case in the revision, and it also works well with "keep going".

So, I'd look again at the original, but with a focus on tightening up the close, including its grammar. For example, it seems to me that the penultimate line might work better as:

but only felt the quiver in them
and how articulately it spoke
for the inarticulacy of the heart.

As others have said, "articulately"/"inarticulacy" is maybe a bit of a mouthful. That said, I don't know how much of a problem that is. I really like what the close is saying, and it's hard to see what synonyms you could use to show the reversal/opposition in the way that "articulately"/"inarticulacy" do without muddying the distinction being made (though I'm not saying you shouldn't keep looking!). Plus for me the near-repetition seems to work/sound a lot better with the penultimate line simplified as above.

best,

Matt

A suggestion for the final line

Keep going, keep going…
is what she said to me
when my lips faltered as I sang
the third verse of a love song
I’d written for her. I didn’t know
she wasn’t listening to the words
but only felt the quiver in them
and how articulate the trembling voice
spoke for the tongue-tied heart.

I like the first sentence of the original the way it is written (including line breaks). The second half could perhaps be rethought/rewritten as a question.

I haven't read the comments. Maybe someone said this already, but I think the final line (I'm reading the revision only) needs to go. Let the reader process for himself what it means. It's not a big leap at all. The hyperpoetic final line is entirely unnecessary, IMHO.

One idea that I really liked in the original was that the heart is unable to speak directly, but must use the hesitant, trembling voice of the singer as a kind of translator or interpreter, sort of like Cyrano de Bergerac wooing Roxanne for Christian. This gets lost when the “inarticulacy” of the heart becomes the “speech” of the heart. You solved the sound problem at the expense of the clarity of the image.

Jim, I hope this is OK - I had fun - thank you!
 

Jim,

Forgive my trespassing. I think the problem was at the very end of the original version, where the author’s modesty is lost.

Also, I think a little shuffling delivers without spelling out too much. The poem already mentions dedication of “the love song.”

Commonly, and unpretentiously, referring to “the trembling voice” allows the wonderful musical term to be used casually as a qualifier: “the quaver in my heart.”


The Third Verse

Keep going, keep going…
is what she said to me
when my lips faltered as I sang
the third verse of the love song
I had written for her. I did not know
she was not listening to the words
but only to the trembling voice
as it delivered the quaver in my heart.


QUAVER (Excerpts)
from Google:

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages

qua·ver
/ˈkwāvər/
verb
(of a person's voice) shake or tremble in speaking, typically through nervousness or emotion.

noun
1.
a shake or tremble in a person's voice.
"it was impossible to hide the slight quaver in her voice"

~

I think the duende rode in and inhabits The Third Verse.

Buenaventura!
~mignon

(From post #13)

A tail hangs out in plain air:

my usual back and forth, until I think I got it.

All yours, Jim, to do or not to do, as you see fit.

~m

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Glenn, Matt, Roger, Lavinia, Joe — Thanks for the push to find the right words. The emotion is there. The experience is there. I am still looking for a way to poetically document it.

Mignon, That was a beautifully delicate way of handling the poem. I could cry. But I very rarely do. You recognize the spirit of the poem for what it is trying to say. In the strangest and best way, you are mirroring what the poem is about. Your gentle voice is pushing me forward with the poem. Keep going is what I hear you saying.

I must find the time and place to re-inhabit this poem. How could a small poem require so much of me? Why am I thinking of leaving the world and sitting with this until every word is right? Why? Because it is a love poem, and love deserves all the attention we can give it. That's why.

Btw, every bit of the (original version) poem is a true accounting of the experience I had not practiced the song hard enough; had not memorized the words like I should have; was unsure if it was even finished yet. But that day (it was early morning) I had seized the moment and took a chance. It was not long before I found myself stumbling with the words, the chords, my voice itself.. I remember becoming overwhelmed with self-consciousness and then, just as I was going to stop and say it wasn’t finished or something like that, she pushed me forward to finish it by simply saying "keep going" and I felt the most vulnerable I had ever felt in my life — and it was wonderful.

(Mignon) I have good reason to believe you exist only in spirit. Some day maybe I’ll get there, too.

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Jim -

re: " How could a small poem require so much of me?"

Small poems are difficult. Although the author has no claim to the response his words evoke in the reader, he is the audience who is most demanding of the poem. The poem must present the music that truly resonates with the author's intention for the work, and that seldom, if ever, is achieved when the words are first set down. It is the editing process that extracts the gold from the rock of the first version, and that process needs to deal with self-doubt, inept form, poor word choices and even the question of, "What am I trying to do here?"

Editing a short poem is difficult in the same way that refining 24 karat gold is more difficult than refining 10 karat gold. It helps to remember that editing your own work not only changes the poem, it changes you as well. It's effort well spent.

JB

The smaller the poem: more noticeable the mishandled element, the crack in the system. The larger the poem: the more of the bulwark against flaws. The smaller the poem: the more is asked of you. The smallest poems want everything. How much of a poet you are depends on how much you will give.

From Jim to Jim (it lost its
 

I had not practiced the song
hard enough,
had not memorized the words
like I should have;
was unsure
if it was even finished yet.

But that day
— it was early morning —
I had seized the moment
and took a chance.
I found myself
stumbling
with the words,
the chords,
my voice itself..
self-conscious
overwhelmed,

I was going to stop,
she pushed me forward
to finish it:
"keep going, keep going,”
and I felt the most vulnerable
I had ever felt in my life —
and it was wonderful

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Revision posted (but now, 6 hours later, is up for another revision.)

John, Cameron: the increased length I hope affords me some leeway : )

Mignon, I'm grateful that you stayed with this.

[Remainder of the comment edited out as I revise my revision]

Carl, Thanks for wading in and tactfully telling me without words that the revision was too prosaic and covered in cliche : ) which it was. But I have yet another way to say it that I'm thinking about.

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Thanks for the epigraph, Jim. I can’t say whether the poem needs it or not, but it’s so right. In fact, that’s what I usually find myself doing in a poem—trying to remember and convey a vivid feeling from the past.

A few random thoughts about the revision, which I do prefer to the original:

In S1L1 and S1L3, how about “hadn’t” for less formality?

Normally, I’d want the more grammatical “as” in S1L4, but “like” is colloquial, and if that’s how you’d say it, I’m cool.

In S2, I’d drop “had” for greater immediacy. The perfect is a further remove into the past. You need a comma after “self-conscious,” btw.

In S3, “pushed me forward” sounds too physical to me. I was going to suggest “urged me on,” but actually you’re telling us what she’s going to say before she says it. That might need rethinking.

Finally, I would have understood “eclipsed” as “obscured” or “overshadowed,” and that clashes oddly with the last line.

Take 2, may it not fly away, this time.

Jim,

You posted a most thoughtful message and I wish to respond in like kind. But I'm having workers in my side of the house; I was lucky to be able to sneak in, since I did not want you to wait too long to have your own words tap you on the shoulder. I'm so glad it worked for you!

More later,
and thank you!
~mignon

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Revision posted. I’m not good at workshopping poems. On top of that I'm a slow learner. It’s not the poems per se that give me difficulty. The difficulty I have is in shaping (revising) them to be finished, or at least better than when they arrived — that's what continues to harry me. I deeply appreciate the patience given to this. In a way, my experience workshopping poems here mirrors the poem's conceit.

It is a great relief to have finally reclaimed the heart of this poem. I apologize for my stumbling and bumbling with the edits. For lack of a better alibi, my stumbling was the product of my poltergeist at play : )

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Jim,

It’s alright to go back and forth with the revision of your poems. It’s commendable. Sometimes, it’s also a good idea to distance yourself before you come back to it. I see you vanished your other versions and I can only hope you did not send them to the bin. Because it is still the same poem, I am not able to comment on it without glancing at the previous versions. But I understand no more comments may be needed if you are satisfied with your last post as the final version.

Special thanks for the kind way in which you referred to me and for how you hear the voice in my writing. Also, thank you for allowing me to enter your poems and making it easy for me to do as I do.

A little story that I think is relevant:

I paint mostly by erasure.

Best wishes and good luck with your poem,
~mignon