slowly
I open my wings
and let this loneliness
fly away
in the summer forest
I'm a Traveler, 2011
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
慢慢地
我張開翅膀
讓這種孤獨感
在夏季森林中
飛走
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
慢慢地
我张开翅膀
让这种孤独感
在夏季森林中
飞走
Bio Sketch
Kozue Uzawa is a retired university professor. She works as editor of the English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama
(Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald
Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia
University.
Below is excerpted from Melissa Dixon's "There is No Turning Back," which was first published in Modern English Tanka, 2, Winter 2016:
ReplyDeleteKozue Uzawa sketches for us a delicate, symbolic poem. We watch in fellowship and hold our breath as she allows her feelings of isolation to ‘fly away’. In selecting this one phrase for the second-last line, she shows us how dramatic emphasis can compensate for the missing syllables of a traditional longer second-last line
Technically speaking, combined with the use of the symbolism of the summer forest, Kozue's visual mental imagery technique (zoom-out; from a mental close-up of the speaker's "wings" to a visual image of the summer forest) is emotionally effective.
ReplyDelete