[Jim Moonan]

.
Revision #2


Unfinished

“Keep going, 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:
You are everywhere I go...
but stumbled with the words,
the chords, my voice itself;
self-conscious,
overwhelmed.

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 heart.




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

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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[John Boddie]

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

[Glenn Wright]

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.

[Jim Moonan]

.
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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[mignon ledgard]

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

[mignon ledgard]

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

[mignon ledgard]

Oops!

Wrong thread.

[Matt Q]

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

[Joe Crocker]

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.

[Lavinia Kumar]

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.