Voice Lessons

I didn't take actual voice lessons until I was in my 30's. I didn't feel I needed them, but upon the urging of several of my fellow professional singer friends (with beautiful voices I might add) I did decide to try it. They, as well as Thomas Swan (my choral music director) suggested that I could do much more with my voice, if I were to take some lessons. Ok. I did. It was actually amazing what it did for me. I didn't take them for long, but the things I did learn, just about how to shape my mouth for certain vowels, how to open my throat and relax, really helped. It was also an emotional experience for me (as music tends to be for me, they are inextricably intertwined---my emotions and music). I found that it was really frightening in some ways. What if I couldn't sing properly? What if I found I wasn't that good? What if...well, you get the idea. But it was fine. I did write a poem, of course, about the experience at the beginning, which I will post now.

Voice Lessons

I feel the tiny bird
flutter in my throat
oh she is hiding there,

the way my French
only emerges clear
when I am tipsy

she too
(I imagine a blue bird
stretching hollow-boned wings)

sings when I am unafraid,
not thinking, alone.

I do not want to loosen her
let her go yet

she is young and fragile,
tentative, insecure,

she might fly and be hit,
spasm in the middle of the road
of my life,

not dead,
but not yet alive.