[Matt Q]

Hi Mary,

I think is very strong. The ending, I didn't see coming, and found very affecting. It's particularly effective in that "sister" can refer both to a biological sister and or, after the listing or names, to a fellow female poet or poets.

Like others, I wondered at the opening. It did sound at first like there may be two tunes. The one she grows to know, and the one she grows that makes her grow. And yet L3 says there's only one. And, it can also be read that way too -- that there is only one tune, and that the N both grew to know it and grew it, and it made her grow. I'm guessing that's your intention and I like the (seeming) paradoxicality of that.

Reversing the first two lines seems to makes that clearer (to me anyway), because it seems to present the correct causal and chronological progression: She grows the tune that makes her grow. She comes to know the tune. The tune becomes her voice.

The tune that made me grow, I grew alone.
The tune I grew to know became my voice.

Still, swapping those lines would change your rhyme scheme, which you may not be keen to do.

Anyway, maybe there's a way of clarifying the opening, making it sound initially less like two voices -- but hopefully not at the cost of losing the paradoxical / interdependent feel of the N both growing the tune, and tune making her grow.

I wondered if there might be an alternative to repeating "final" in "final thoughts", which to me sounded a little flat.

Matt