I am held
in this bed in this life
by your hands --
where would I be now
if I had said "no"
Short Songs, 2003
Amelia Fielden
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
我這輩子
被你的雙手困在
這張床上 --
如果我說 "不"
我現在會在哪裡?
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
我这辈子
被你的双手困在
这张床上 --
如果我说 "不"
我现在会在哪里?
Bio Sketch
Amelia Fielden is an Australian.She is a professional translator of Japanese Literature, and an enthusiastic writer of tanka in English.Amelia has had published 18 books of translations,and 7 of her own work,as well as 2 collections of responsive tanka with fellow Australian,Kathy Kituai,and 2 bilingual collections with Saeko Ogi. In 2007 Amelia & co-translator Kozue Uzawa were awarded the Donald Keene Prize For Translation of Japanese Literature,by Columbia University, New York, for the anthology Ferris Wheel : 101 Modern & Contemporary Japanese Tanka.
The upper verse successfully sets the context, thematic and emotive, through the effective use of rhythmic repetition while the rhetorical question in the lower verse adds emotional weight to the poem.
ReplyDeleteNote: A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question that is asked in order to make a point.[1] The question, a rhetorical device, is posed not to elicit a specific answer, but rather to encourage the listener to consider a message or viewpoint -- excerpted from the Wikipedia entry, "Rhetorical Question."