The Uncarved Blog

Here’s the POEM OF THE DAY, presented by THIS ENDURING GIFT, A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry, 76 Poets Who Found Common Ground in One Small Prairie Town:

POETRY – THE ART OF THE VOICE

How fine will your breath become
from listening to these words?
How soft will they seem to be
as they settle through the mind
like silent snowflakes falling
from a windless winter sky?

I often marvel at the mystery—
how words can work
on a listener’s heart and mind,
upon hearing a poet’s thoughts,
a poet’s breath, flowing
from an inner voice—

a windless wind, speaking
through a voiceless voice.

© Ken Chawkin

Published in This Enduring Gift, 2010
http://www.thisenduringgift.com/poetry-the-art-of-the-voice.html

“This Enduring Gift is a testament to the abiding power of poetry within a particularly unique community and, by extension, speaks to poetry’s universal relevance. Here, a convergence of voices from places near and far, gathered in a small Midwestern town, observe, reflect, meditate, and wonder. From evocative lyrics to compelling narratives, from precise moments of deeply felt experience to inquiries of mystical complexities, these poems resonate with individual authenticity and true collective spirit.”
— Walter E. Butts, 2009-2014 Poet Laureate of New Hampshire

Enjoy and share these POEMS OF THE DAY with friends and poetry lovers you know.

Freddy Niagara Fonseca
PO Box 1271
Fairfield, IA 52556
641-472-7634
operafred@lisco.com

Creator of
Fairfield’s No. 1 Bestselling Poetry Book
THIS ENDURING GIFT
A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry
76 Poets Who Found Common Ground in One Small Prairie Town

Published in 2010 by 1st World Publishing
To purchase THIS ENDURING GIFT, go to http://www.thisenduringgift.com

Also available in Fairfield at Revelations Cafe & Bookstore

If you click on the link to the Poem of the Day you’ll notice only two stanzas of 6 and 8 lines each, which is the way I had originally written it. Below is an explanation I had emailed friends for this change into three stanzas, a newer final version:

Here is the latest Poem of the Day from publisher/editor Freddy Fonseca. It happens to be one of my poems from the book This Enduring Gift. After reading it again I realized I should have created a space in the last stanza to separate the final conclusion from the rest of it, to now read as two 6-line stanzas and a denouement of a 2-line stanza, the main message of the silent transcendent. So I’ve now separated it to look like the way I read it aloud, emphasizing and expressing the inexpressible silence in the gap, the source of all poetry, at the end.

If you click on the link, you’ll see how it appears in the book, and elsewhere on my blog. But right now, I’ve decided to alter it slightly to better reflect the sentiment of the poem.

Sometimes revisions never cease when a clearer perception presents what was obvious all along but now realized. In fact it was Freddy who helped me clarify an incorrect older word in the second stanza’s original wording, which transformed it into a more accurate and better poem, and I thank him for that.

This final small change should hopefully convey the message more clearly on the page, reflecting the hearing of it when read aloud. Read it aloud to yourself, slowly, and you’ll see what I mean.

Freddy just responded in agreement, saying the essence of the poem comes across like it has been thus far well enough, but the new arrangement does indeed make it even better. Then he reminded me that a poem is never ever finished, and laughed. If he ever publishes a new version of the book, he said he’d change it accordingly. So now you have the latest, and hopefully final, version!

Enjoy!

Ken

This entry was posted on September 18, 2011 at 2:19 pm and is filed under My poems, Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.