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A poet's revisionsWhen the poem got bogged down between the second and third stanza some cuts were in order.
Published: February 24, 2006 Sunset With Voices [First draft]
Beyond the line of trees
against the western sky,
the bright boat of the sun
goes down, and it gets quiet.
Rumbles of thunder subside
in harmony with daylight
fading. And now the voices
can be heard nattering gently
once we've fallen silent.
David would read Calvin's "Institutes" by day
and wash the dishes almost every evening.
My mother, after hours in the garden,
would conk out on the sofa after supper.
My father, seated at a rickety table,
would type with the same number
of fingers I am using now
and, one mythic Sunday morning, startled
proselytizing Jehovah's Witnesses,
intoning "Go away.
There are godless people here."
Endless conversations
threading the years. When, peacefully
as this one, evening falls,
I can not only hear them,
I can glimpse their faces,
even if fleetingly,
even if from the corner of an eye.
Sunset with Voices [Final draft]
Beyond the line of trees
against the western sky,
the bright boat of the sun
goes down, and it gets quiet.
Rumbles of thunder
subside with daylight fading.
And now, and now the voices can be heard
nattering gently once we've fallen silent.
The summers melt and merge.
David reads Calvin's "Institutes" by day
and washes dishes every night. My mother
after hours in the garden conks
out on the sofa after supper. Daddy
at a rickety table in the barn
types with the same two fingers I use now,
and one especially mythic Sunday morning
startles proselytizing Jehovah's Witnesses,
intoning "Go away. There are godless people here."
Conversations thread the decades. When,
peacefully as this one, evening falls,
I hear the voices
and sometimes glimpse the faces,
even if fleetingly,
if only from the corner of an eye.
--Rachel Hadas
In the earlier version, the material doesn't flow smoothly between the
second and third stanza, a problem related but not limited to the fact
that the second stanza is too long. Once I started cutting and
rearranging, it seemed clear and easy for each stanza to be 8 lines long
(the entire poem is only a few lines shorter as a result but reads more
cleanly and clearly).
Another problem in the second stanza was the awkward verb tense to
indicate repeated past action (as in the French imperfect, but we lack
that in English): "would read," "would conk out," and so on. Turning that
tense into the present is clearer and more vivid, and truer to the
re-emergence the poem is all about: "David reads ...," "my mother ... conks,"
and so on.
In order to signal this reactivation, the second stanza now starts with a
kind of topic sentence, a guide to what follows: "The summers melt and
merge."
In the earlier version, the little anecdote about my father and the
Jehovah's Witnesses causes the second stanza to swell out of proportion.
In the final version, an enjambment between the second and third stanzas
creates a bit of suspense, indicates that this episode happened once and
not repeatedly, and allows the stanzas to maintain their symmetry. And in
the final version of the third stanza, "conversations thread the decades"
is clearer and less hyperbolic than "endless conversations/threading the
years." The resulting poem feels more poised and shaped to me, even
though it retains the lyric lightness I was hoping for. Note also the
title change. The individual revisions are quite minor, amounting to
small cuts, changes and rearrangements; but the result is a more
authoritative and perfected poem.
Rachel Hadas is the author of twelve books of poetry, essays and translations. Her collections of poetry include Laws (Zoo Press, 2004), Indelible (2001) and Halfway Down the Hall: New & Selected Poems (1998).
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