[Roger Slater]

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.

[Glenn Wright]

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.

[mignon ledgard]

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

[mignon ledgard]

(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

[Jim Moonan]

.
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.

.

[John Boddie]

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

[W T Clark]

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.

[mignon ledgard]

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

[Jim Moonan]

.
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.

.

[Carl Copeland]

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.