Friday, February 28, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Locked Gate Tanka by Susan Constable

English Original

time and again
I leave the nursing home
through a locked gate
fearing the code that lets me out
will one day hold me in

GUSTS, 12, 2010

Susan Constable


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一次又一次
通過有安全鎖的門
我離開安養院
擔心有一天,讓我離開的代碼
會將我鎖在裡面

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一次又一次
通过有安全锁的门
我离开安养院
担心有一天,让我离开的代码
会将我锁在里面


Bio Sketch

Susan Constable’s tanka appear in numerous journals and anthologies, including Take Five. She placed third in the 2010 Tanka Society of America Contest and her tanka collection, The Eternity of Waves, is one of the winning entries in the eChapbook Awards for 2012. She is currently the tanka editor for the international on-line journal, A Hundred Gourds. Susan lives with her husband on Canada’s beautiful west coast.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Butterfly Dream: River Haiku by Pravat Kumar Padhy

English Original

flow of the river --
I gather wisdom
at every turn

Honourable Mention, World Haiku Review, August, 2012

Pravat Kumar Padhy


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

流動的河流 --
在每一個轉彎之處
我收集智慧

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

流动的河流 --
在每一个转弯之处
我收集智慧


Bio Sketch

Born in India, poems widely published and anthologized. Works referred in Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry etc. Poems awarded high acclamations by Writer’s Guild of India and Editors’ Choice awards. Pravat Kumar Padhy's Japanese short form of poetry appeared in many international journals and anthologies. Songs of Love: A celebration is his third collection of verse by Writers Workshop, Calcutta. Featured in The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India, to be published by Hidden Brook Press, Canada, 2014

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XXI

unemployed
I stay drunk on writing
love poetry
maple leaves falling
upon maple leaves...

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Note: you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Snowfall Haiku by kjmunro

English Original

the snowfall
erases our footprints --
clean sheets

Yukon News  (read by the poet on CBC radio December 2012)

kjmunro


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

落雪
抹去了我們的足跡 --
乾淨的床單

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

落雪
抹去了我们的足迹 --
乾净的床单


Bio Sketch

Born & raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, kjmunro moved to the Yukon Territory in 1991. She is a member of Haiku Canada, and volunteers with The Whitehorse Poetry Society . She is currently working on a poetry manuscript.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Oak-Gripped Bank Tanka by Larry Kimmel

English Original

I've come again
to this oak-gripped bank,
who knows why?—
recalling our last time here,
I watch a red leaf drift out of sight

American Tanka, 8, Spring 2000

Larry Kimmel


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

我再次來到
這條橡樹林立的河岸,
誰知道為什麼?-
回顧我們最後一次在這裡,
我看到一片紅葉飄移出我的視線

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

我再次来到
这条橡树林立的河岸,
谁知道为什麽?-
回顾我们最後一次在这里,
我看到一片红叶飘移出我的视线


Bio Sketch

Larry Kimmel is a US poet. He holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Pittsburgh University, and has worked at everything from steel mills to libraries. Recent books are Blue Night & the inadequacy of long-stemmed roses, this hunger, tissue-thin, and The Piercing Blue of Sirius. He lives with his wife in the hills of Western Massachusetts.

Butterfly Dream: Unsteady Feet Haiku by George Swede

English Original

unsteady feet --
the increasing weight
of the past  

Frogpond, 2012, 35.3

George Swede


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

不穩的腳步 --
日益增重
的過去

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

不稳的脚步 --
日益增重
的过去


Bio Sketch

George Swede's most recent collections of haiku are Almost Unseen (Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2000) and Joy In Me Still (Edmonton: Inkling Press, 2010).He is a former editor of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America (2008-2012) and a former Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives (2008-2009).

Monday, February 24, 2014

Cool Announcement: A Free Essay, Intersecting Influences in American Haiku

"Intersecting Influences in American Haiku," Thomas Lynch's essay on American haiku in relation to both classical Zen-influenced Japanese haiku and American transcendentalism, was first published in Modernity in East-West Literary Criticism: New Readings, edited by Yoshinobu Hakutani (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001, pp.114–136). Now, this essay is made available for free and open access at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln.  You can read its full text here


Abstract

In contemporary American haiku poetry we find a convergence of the tradition of the American transcendentalists, especially Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, with the Zen-influenced Japanese tradition of haiku composition. This convergence is most obvious in a shared belief in the ability of the poet to see the world anew, and in the desire to efface the subject/object dichotomy between the poet and the natural world. In the work of many North American poets, the transcendental and Zen traditions synthesize to generate a distinctive brand of haiku. Since the mid-1950s, literally thousands of collections of haiku poetry have appeared in the United States and Canada. Hundreds of thousands of haiku have been published in scores of magazines, and the rate of publication increases steadily. Yet English language haiku has so far not been accepted as a legitimate form of American poetry worthy of inclusion in literary anthologies and consideration in critical discussions.


Key Points (excerpted from the essay)

... I also wish to approach haiku as a current manifestation of a trend in American poetics that begins in earnest in the writings of the transcendentalists in particular, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman and that has continued under various guises in the work of, among others, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos  Williams,Richard Wright, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder, and in fact a sizable number of other contemporary poets. In short, I would contend that haiku is a genre that fulfills the poetic aspirations of important trends in American literature that have endured throughout the past century and a half. Assuredly such a slight genre could not otherwise have so greatly influenced such an imposing cast of poets did it notfulfill some deep-seated necessity in their poetic practice ... (p.115)

These trends link transcendentalist ideas such as the Edenic impulse and the effacement of the subject/object dichotomy with modernist ideas such as Pound's idea of the "direct presentation of theimage" and Williams's  notion of "No ideas but in things." These fundamental aspects of such important traditions in American literature and poetics closely correlate with important aspects of the philosophy underlying much of haiku-Zen Buddhism. In linking transcendentalism and Zen I don't mean to imply that they are identical, or even that they are necessarily all that similar (though such a case can be made), only that on these key issues that have been of paramount importance to poets of both traditions, they share related views that have intersected in the practice of many contemporary haiku poets. ... pp. 115-6

In sum, several relevant correlations between the poetic theory of Japanese haiku poets and the theory of the American transcendentalists can be deduced: 1) a belief in the interfusion of the self with external nature, seeking to resolve the subject/object dichotomy and to return us to an awareness of the true self that we share with all other things; 2) an understanding that in order to achieve such an interfusion we need to attain what might be termed an Edenic condition in which we efface the ego-self and reject preconceptions and received beliefs; 3) a recognition that for most of us such an interfusion occurs in fragmentary moments of perception; 4) an awareness that the present time is the only time, and the present place the only place, to achieve such a perception... p.121


Haiku Examples:

In my medicine cabinet,
the winter fly
has died of old age.

Kerouac

They didn't hire him
so he ate his lunch alone:
the noon whistle

Gary Snyder

hermit thrush
at twilight pebbles
in the stream

the breeze and i
making our way
through the grasses

John Wills

walking with the river
the water does my thinking

shutting my eye
one star
caught

Bob Boldman

Sunday, February 23, 2014

A Room of My Own: Haunting Ghost

for Peter De Vries who claims that Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.


in the attic
nostalgia is growing old
to keep
or not to keep her
the big question

upon knowing
I am going to send her
to a rest home
nostalgia stops talking
and starts a hunger strike

I shoot
nostalgia dead
my muse
condemned to the void
between the lines

this white night
an apparition
of nostalgia
corkscrews
my attic ceiling

Saturday, February 22, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Sharp Knife Tanka by Carol Purington

English Original

Her sharp knife quick
to peel, core, slice the red apple
    we talk of childhood fears
          how I blocked my ears
          against the fairy tale

First Prize, 2012 Tanka Society of America  International Tanka Contest

Carol Purington


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

她鋒利的刀​​快速地
將紅蘋果去皮,去核,切片
    我們談論童年的恐懼
            我如何擋住了耳朵
            拒聽童話

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

她锋利的刀​​快速地
将红苹果去皮,去核,切片
    我们谈论童年的恐惧
            我如何挡住了耳朵
            拒听童话


Bio Sketch

Carol Purington is at home in the hills of western Massachusetts. She writes about seasonal and emotional rhythms, exploring connections between the worlds inside us and the worlds our bodies interpret. Her works have appeared in English-language haiku/tanka publications, both print and online, and they have won recognition in international contests. She has published three books of tanka: The Trees Bleed Sweetness, A Pattern for This Place, and Gathering Peace.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Faded Photo Haiku by Ken Sawitri

English Original

wedding anniversary --
faded photograph
in a glossy frame

Frogpond, 36:3, Autumn 2013

Ken Sawitri


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

結婚紀念日 --
褪色照片
在發亮的相框中

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

结婚纪念日 --
褪色照片
在发亮的相框中


Bio Sketch

Ken Sawitri was born in Blora, Central Java, Indonesia, and completed her degree in psychology at the  University of Indonesia. She started writing and had the 1st publication in Indonesian national mass media when she was in junior high school. She was the Psychology & Education editor of Ayahbunda (1995-1998).  A beginner in writing haiku, she had some haiku published in A Handful of Stones, and Asahi Haikuist Network.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Murdered Child Tanka by M. Kei

English Original

motoring out
of the Port of Baltimore
on a winter day,
passing a dredge boat
searching for a murdered child

M. Kei


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

冬天某日
開車離開
巴爾的摩港,
經過一條挖泥船
在尋找一個被謀殺孩子

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

冬天某日
开车离开
巴尔的摩港,
经过一条挖泥船
在寻找一个被谋杀孩子


Bio Sketch

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet. He is the editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, and the author of Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (Recommend Reading by the Chesapeake Bay Project). He is the editor of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka and compiler of the Bibliography of English-Language Tanka. He has published over 1500 tanka poems. He also published a gay Asian-themed fantasy novel, Fire Dragon. Twitter: @kujakupoet

Butterfly Dream: Turkey Vultures Haiku by Annette Makino

English Original

golden hills
turkey vultures circle the remains
of summer

First Place, UkiaHaiku Contest (2013)

Annette Makino


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

金色山陵
土耳其禿鷹圍繞
夏天的遺跡

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

金色山陵
土耳其秃鹰围绕
夏天的遗迹


Bio Sketch

Annette Makino is a poet and artist who combines Japanese ink paintings with original haiku and other words. She grew up with a Japanese father and a Swiss mother, and has lived in both Japan and Europe. Makino makes her home in Arcata, California with her husband, two children and a dog. She offers paintings, prints, books and greeting cards of her work through her art business, Makino Studios

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XX

South Asians and I
seated around a piece
of plane wreckage
in the Maple Land... waking
to the smell of turkey

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Note: you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Summer Rain Haiku by Irena Szewczyk

English Original

summer rain
freeing stalks of grass
from her hair

WHA Haiga Contest,  August 2nd, 2013

Irena Szewczyk


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

夏雨
將草稈從她的頭髮
移走

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

夏雨
将草秆从她的头髮
移走


Bio Sketch

Irena Szewczyk lives in Warsaw Poland. She started to write haiku and make photo haiga in 2011. She publishes her works in English, French, Polish and Hungarian on her blog, Iris Haiku. Her haiku and haiga have been published in The Mainichi, The Asahi Shimbun, Daily Haiga, Haigaonline, Haiku Novine, Notes from the Gean, Sketchbook, Polish Haiku Anthology Blue Grasses, and WHA Haiga Contest, and she won a Honorable Mention in the HIA Haiku Contest.

Monday, February 17, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Fruit Trees Tanka by Marilyn Humbert

English Original

fruit trees
laden with blossom
spring is singing
this time, maybe this time
and my heart quickens

Gusts, 17, Spring/Summer 2013

Marilyn Humbert


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

果樹
開滿了花
春天在唱歌
這一次,也許這一次
我的心臟加快

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

果树
开满了花
春天在唱歌
这一次,也许这一次
我的心脏加快


Bio Sketch

Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney NSW surrounded by bush. Her pastimes include writing free verse poetry, tanka, tanka prose and related genre. She is the leader of Bottlebrush Tanka Group and member of the Huddle and Bowerbird Tanka Groups. Her tanka appears in Australian and International Journals.

Butterfly Dream: Winter Haiku by Lorin Ford

English Original

shades of winter --
my mother in the passage
between dreams

Frogpond, 35:3, Autumn 2012

Lorin Ford


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

冬天陰影 --
我母親在夢與夢
之間的通道

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

冬天阴影 --
我母亲在梦与梦
之间的通道


Bio Sketch

Lorin Ford grew up between two homes, one by the beach and one in the bush. She has written ‘long’ poems but these days she focuses on haiku , both as a writer and as an editor. Her book, a wattle seedpod,(PostPressed 2008) is currently out of print but short collections of her work can be accessed at the Snapshot Press website and via her bio on the editors’ page .

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Poetic Musings: Time's Passing Haiku by Katoh Shuuson

Japanese Original:

hakutai-no kakaku shingari-ni neko-no ko-mo

English Translation:

the days and months travelers
through a hundred generations
kitten tags along

 Trans. by Dhugal J. Lindsay 16


The haiku above is written by Katoh Shuuson (or Kato Shuson; 1905-1993), haiku poet and leader of the humanist school that seeks the truths of human existence through the poetic means of haiku, and who is "known for his scholarly and poetic appreciations of the great classic haijin, notably Matsuo Basho:" 15

On a denotative level, this haiku speaks of two types of movement: one is temporal, and the other spatial; one is portrayed in a metaphorical language, and the other a literal one. The juxtaposition of these two parts of the poem stirs the reader's reflection on temporal awareness and consciousness, and it reminds me of one of the thematic foci described in "Book XI" of Confessions, in which St. Augustine explores the relationship between God's timelessness and his creation's experience of time. Most importantly, the image juxtaposed with the first two lines – the Existentialist statement on time as the traveler – is an innocent, uninvited, kitten, offsetting the unbearable heaviness of its preceding lines and thus creating some sort of a comic-tragic effect. It further stirs up the reader's emotions about and reflection on the absence of human beings in the poem. This haiku is brilliantly written and its suggestive power relies on the thematic gap between the two parts of the poem. It can definitely stand on its own without the reader's extra/inter-textual knowledge.

On a connotative level, the first two lines of this haiku are a direct quote from the opening line of the first haibun in Basho's travelogue, The Narrow Road to the Interior, one that is followed by "and the years that come and go are also travelers." 17 Read in the context of Basho's travelogue, the opening haibun is the most important section of the work that determines the theme, tone, movement, and goals.18 It also describes multiple departures – "the hermit-poet's philosophical departure from a particular way of life and his actual physical departure from the hermitage, a symbol of life he abandons." 19

The haibun was written in the first person perspective, and Basho stressed that "[many] in the past also died while traveling. In which year it was I do not recall, but I, too, began to be lured by the wind like a fragmentary cloud and have since been unable to resist wanderlust, roaming out to the seashores." 20 According to Hiroaki Sato, "many in the past" might refer to Japanese poets, such as Saigyo and Sogi, and Chinese poets, such as, Li Po and Tu Fu, who all died while traveling. 21 More importantly, Basho's opening lines allude to a popular piece, the preface to "Holding a Banquet in the Peach and Pear Garden on a Spring Night," written by Chinese poet Li Po. 22 They are almost a literal translation into Japanese of Li Po's lines, except that " one Chinese term, using the compound tsukihi (month and days, moon and sun, or time) [is] in place of [Li Po's] koin (day and night, light and darkness, or time)." 23 Unlike his contemporaries, such as Ihara Saikaku and Oyodo Michikaze, both of whom used a direct quote, 24 Basho changed koin to tsukihi. It's because tsukihi brings to the Japanese reader's mind "more concrete and vivid images of the moon and sun with all the connotations the two carry in the Japanese poetic tradition." 25 In the haibun, Basho established a poetic-interpersonal relationship with the ancients, one that reveals his sense of rootedness.

Shuuson, unlike his poetic forefather Basho, used a direct quote written in modern Japanese from Basho's famous haibun, and subtly showed the tonal difference between his quoted line and Basho's original. 26 And he wrote his haiku from a perspective of an objective observer. There is no human figure in the haiku. What we see is just a cute kitten unaware of the passage of time, tagging along the procession of the days and months as travelers. The psycho-philosophical impact of the inner tension and thematic gap is brought about by the sharp contrast between the two parts of the poem.

For attentive Japanese readers, Shuuson's haiku is fresh and original in terms of his skillful use of a haikai twist through honkadori that parodies the existential themes of death and of the transience of life explored in Basho's work. When they encounter his poem, they read it slowly, repeatedly and communally. Unlike modern English-language haiku, "which [are] often monologic, a single voice describing or responding to a scene or experience," 27 the haiku Shuuson wrote was mainly situated in a communal setting and dialogic responses to earlier poems by other poets. "The brevity of the [haiku] is in fact possible because each poem is implicitly part of a massive, communally shared poem." 28 More importantly, it wasn't until the post-Enlightenment that this non-individualist/communal concept of poetry began to be less known to the poets who were brought up in the Western literary culture. 29 In his influential book, titled The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Harold Bloom particularly mentions Shelley's speculations that: "poets of all ages contributed to one Great Poem perpetually in progress." 30 Like Japanese poets, Shelley viewed poetry as a collective enterprise.

-- excerpted from  my essay, titled "Read It Slowly, Repeatedly, and Communally," which was first published in A Hundred Gourds, 1:1, December 2011

Saturday, February 15, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Life's Shoreline Tanka by Pravat Kumar Padhy

English Original

at life’s shoreline
the sands of time escape
from many gaps …
I collect memories
embedded in sediment

Notes from the Gean, 3:1, June 2011

Pravat Kumar Padhy


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在人生海岸線
時間的砂
從許多裂縫中溜走 ...
我收集嵌入沉積物
的回憶


Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在人生海岸线
时间的砂
从许多裂缝中溜走 ...
我收集嵌入沉积物
的回忆


Bio Sketch

Born in India, poems widely published and anthologized. Works referred in Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry etc. Poems awarded high acclamations by Writer’s Guild of India and Editors’ Choice awards. Pravat Kumar Padhy's  Japanese short form of poetry appeared in many international journals and anthologies. Songs of Love: A celebration is his third collection of verse by Writers Workshop, Calcutta. Featured in The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India, to be published by Hidden Brook Press, Canada, 2014

Friday, February 14, 2014

A Room of My Own: Little House on the Prairie

I stand alone
under the prairie sky
chewing on thoughts

ripple after ripple
of grass shadows
the scent of spring

tall grasses
bend to the moon's faint light
wending my way home

Thursday, February 13, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Harvest Mouse Tanka by Jenny Ward Angyal

English Original

a harvest mouse
gathering seeds
she didn’t sow . . .
in my seventh decade
a thin sheaf of poems

Nest Award, Skylark 1: 2,  Winter 2013

Jenny Ward Angyal


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一隻巢鼠
蒐集她沒有播種
的種子 ...
在我的第七個十年
一捆薄薄的詩集

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一只巢鼠
蒐集她没有播种
的种子 ...
在我的第七个十年
一捆薄薄的诗集


Bio Sketch

Jenny Ward Angyal lives with her husband and one Abyssinian cat on a small organic farm in Gibsonville, NC, USA.  She composed her first poem at the age of five. Her tanka and other poems have appeared in various print and online journals and may also be found on her blog, The Grass Minstrel 

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Shrinking Shadows Haiku by Alegria Imperial

English Original

somehow
our shrinking shadows touch --
harvest moon

Dottie Dot Awards, Haiku Bandit Society, September 2011

Alegria Imperial


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

不知何故
我們萎縮的陰影相互碰觸 --
中秋月

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

不知何故
我们萎缩的阴影相互碰触 --
中秋月


Bio Sketch

Alegria Imperial’s haiku for Haiku Foundation’s 2012 Haiku Competition was Commended in the traditional category. She has also won honorable mentions in the 2007 Vancouver Cherry Blossoms Festival Invitational Haiku and her tanka adjudged Excellent, 7th International Tanka Festival Competition 2012. Her poetry have been published in international journals among them A Hundred Gourds, The Heron’s Nest, LYNX, Notes from the Gean, eucalypt and GUSTS. Formerly of Manila Philippines, she now lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

One Man's Maple Moon: Corner Tanka by Susan Constable

English Original

the baby
crawls backwards
into a corner
time after time
I’ve been there, too

Haiku Canada Review, 7:1, 2013

Susan Constable


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

小寶寶
向後爬入
一個角落
一次又一次
我也在那裡

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

小宝宝
向後爬入
一个角落
一次又一次
我也在那里


Bio Sketch

Susan Constable’s tanka appear in numerous journals and anthologies, including Take Five. She placed third in the 2010 Tanka Society of America Contest and her tanka collection, The Eternity of Waves, is one of the winning entries in the eChapbook Awards for 2012. She is currently the tanka editor for the international on-line journal, A Hundred Gourds. Susan lives with her husband on Canada’s beautiful west coast.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Donkey's Hee-Haw Haiku by George Swede

English Original

no sure answers
to life's questions
donkey's hee-haw  

Modern Haiku, 41:2, 2010

George Swede


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

人生問題
沒有確定的答案
驢的刺耳叫聲

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

人生问题
没有确定的答案
驴的刺耳叫声


Bio Sketch

George Swede's most recent collections of haiku are Almost Unseen (Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2000) and Joy In Me Still (Edmonton: Inkling Press, 2010). He is a former editor of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America (2008-2012) and a former Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives (2008-2009).

Monday, February 10, 2014

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XIX

a Mohawk youth
and an old Canadian
shout at each other...
we're here because we're here
if you must have a reason

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Note: you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Rest Home Haiku by Erik Linzbach

English Original

rest home garden
tomatoes rotting
on the vine

Modern Haiku, 44:2, Summer 2013

Erik Linzbach


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

安養院的花園
藤蔓上
腐爛的蕃茄

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

安养院的花园
藤蔓上
腐烂的蕃茄


Bio Sketch

Erik Linzbach's poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Besides writing, he enjoys cooking, reading and playing chess.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Pussywillows Tanka by Carol Purington

English Original

Pussywillows
in a vase without water
so they'll last
      the story my grandmother
      told only once

Second Place, 2004 TSA International Tanka Contest

Carol Purington


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

美洲小柳
放在沒水的花瓶
這樣他們便可以生還
       這個故事我的祖母
       只說了一次

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

美洲小柳
放在没水的花瓶
这样他们便可以生还
        这个故事我的祖母
        只说了一次


Bio Sketch

Carol Purington is at home in the hills of western Massachusetts. She writes about seasonal and emotional rhythms, exploring connections between the worlds inside us and the worlds our bodies interpret. Her works have appeared in English-language haiku/tanka publications, both print and online, and they have won recognition in international contests. She has published three books of tanka: The Trees Bleed Sweetness, A Pattern for This Place, and Gathering Peace.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Poetic Musings: Fallen Flower Haiku by Masaoka Shiki

On the first anniversary of the death of Shimizu

rakka e ni kaeredo hito no yukue kana

a fallen flower returns - yet a man's destination …


This haiku is a play on the celebrated Arakida Moritake haiku (an important influence for Ezra Pound), which itself refers to a scene in a Zeami Noh drama (a significant fact missed by Pound and Blyth, discussed by Hasegawa in his book, haiku no uchu, and others). The Moritake haiku is:

rakka eda ni kaeru to mireba chocho kana

A fallen leaf
Flew back to its branch!
No, it was a butterfly.
(Blyth translation)

Shiki, in his play on Moritake viz Zeami asks, whither the soul of his dearly loved friend? Having exited this world, is a human death but a single "fallen leaf," and, unlike the butterfly, without return? Shiki desperately grieves for his friend and has sworn to devote his life to Shimizu's remembrance...

(As an aside, Blyth quotes the Moritake haiku as an illustrative example of poor poetry, criticizing an "over-reaching" of intellect at the expense of "imagination." He writes (to paraphrase) that haiku should deal with facts, not fantasy or illusion.)

-- excerpted from Richard Gilbert, "A Brilliant Literature: Robert Wilson Interviews Professor Richard Gilbert, Part I," Simply Haiku, 6:4, Winter 2008

(As an aside, Blyth quotes the Moritake haiku as an illustrative example of poor poetry, criticizing an "over-reaching" of intellect at the expense of "imagination." He writes (to paraphrase) that haiku should deal with facts, not fantasy or illusion.)

This reveals that Blyth had no knowledge of one of Japanese poetic devices employed in Moritake's abovementioned haiku:

Read in the context of Japanese classic haiku, technically speaking, there is nothing new about Moritake’ s haiku. In it, he employed a centuries-old poetic device, “mitate” (taking one thing for another) 2 as shown in the following waka:

In my garden
plum blossoms fall –
or is it not rain
but snow, cast down
from the sky?

Otomo No Tabito (665 – 731)

(Addiss, p. 17)

However, this haiku gains more resonance if the reader is aware of the following Zen saying: “The fallen blossom cannot return to its branch.” It makes this saying anew in light of the transformative power of a butterfly. That’s one of the reasons that Moritake’ s haiku is considered “one of the most famous verses of all early haikai poets.” (Addiss, p. 62)

-- excerpted from To the Lighthouse: Haiku as a Form of Super-Position


Reference:

Addiss, Stephen, The Art of Haiku:Its History through Poems and Paintings by Japanese Masters, Shambhala, 2012.

One Man's Maple Moon: Finely-Spun Web Tanka by George Swede

English Original

After reading
the haiku of Issa
seeing at last
the finely-spun web
between two piano legs

Gusts, 15, Spring/Summer 2012

George Swede


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

讀完小林俳句
之後
終於看到
兩條鋼琴腿之間
的細蜘蛛網

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

读完小林俳句
之後
终於看到
两条钢琴腿之间
的细蜘蛛网


Bio Sketch

George Swede has published two collections of tanka: First Light, First Shadows (Liverpool: Snapshot Press, 2006) and White Thoughts, Blue Mind (Edmonton: Inkling Press, 2010). His tanka have also appeared in a number of anthologies, including The Tanka Anthology (Red Moon Press, 2003) and a number of journals, including Ribbons and Gusts.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Spring Rolls Haiku by Alegria Imperial

English Original

spring rolls...
grandma unwraps
my childhood

The Mainichi Daily, June 19, 2013

Alegria Imperial


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

春捲 ...
奶奶攤開
我的童年

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

春捲 ...
奶奶摊开
我的童年


Bio Sketch

Alegria Imperial’s haiku for Haiku Foundation’s 2012 Haiku Competition was Commended in the traditional category. She has also won honorable mentions in the 2007 Vancouver Cherry Blossoms Festival Invitational Haiku and her tanka adjudged Excellent, 7th International Tanka Festival Competition 2012. Her poetry have been published in international journals, among them A Hundred Gourds, The Heron’s Nest, LYNX, Notes from the Gean, eucalypt and GUSTS. Formerly of Manila Philippines, she now lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

A Room of My Own: English Wordmines Tanka

like a coolie
laboring in English wordmines
for seven years...
the scars in his mind
the hole in his heart

for 劉鎮歐 who has lost his Chinese soul

Butterfly Dream: Distant Hill Haiku by Ramesh Anand

English Original

distant hill
a river carrying
the spring

Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine, 2012

Ramesh Anand


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

遠處山丘
河流攜帶著
春天

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

远处山丘
河流携带著
春天


Bio Sketch

Ramesh Anand authored Newborn Smiles, a book of haiku poetry published by Cyberwit.Net Press. His haiku has appeared in many publications, across 14 countries, including Bottle Rockets Press, ACORN, Magnapoets, The Heron's Nest, South by Southeast and Frogpond. His haiku has been translated in German, Serbian, Japanese, Croatian, Romanian, Telugu and Tamil. His tanka has been published in Tinywords, Kernels Online and Bamboo Hut and also forthcoming in many print journals. He blogs at Ramesh-inflame.blogspot.com.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Rose Garden Haiku by Pravat Kumar Padhy

English Original

rose garden
fragrance filters through
prison windows

Chrysanthemum, 12, October 2012

Pravat Kumar Padhy


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

玫瑰園
花香通過
監獄的窗戶

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

玫瑰园
花香通过
监狱的窗户



Bio Sketch

Born in India, poems widely published and anthologized. Works referred in Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry etc. Poems awarded high acclamations by Writer’s Guild of India and Editors’ Choice awards. Pravat Kumar Padhy's  Japanese short form of poetry appeared in many international journals and anthologies. Songs of Love: A celebration is his third collection of verse by Writers Workshop, Calcutta. Featured in The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India, to be published by Hidden Brook Press, Canada, 2014

Monday, February 3, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Anniversaries Tanka by M. Kei

English Original

a colleague wishes me
Thanksgiving cheer --
but I have
a desk full of dark
anniversaries unspoken

M. Kei


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一位同事祝福我
感恩節快樂 --
然而我有
滿桌黑暗
的無言紀念日

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一位同事祝福我
感恩节快乐 --
然而我有
满桌黑暗
的无言纪念日


Bio Sketch

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet. He is the editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, and the author of Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (Recommend Reading by the Chesapeake Bay Project). He is the editor of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka and compiler of the Bibliography of English-Language Tanka. He has published over 1500 tanka poems. He also published a gay Asian-themed fantasy novel, Fire Dragon. Twitter: @kujakupoet

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Secrets Haiku by Pat Tompkins

English Original

summer night
secrets escape through
open windows

Heron’s Nest, 11:2, 2009

Pat Tompkins


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

夏日夜晚
秘密通過打開的窗戶
逃脫

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

夏日夜晚
秘密通过打开的窗户
逃脱


Bio Sketch

Pat Tompkins is an editor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems, ranging from haiku to pantoums, have appeared in the Heron's Nest, Astropoetica, flashquake, and other publications

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XVIII

standing still
three First Nations children
in twilight
my spring-roll stand
at the Taste of Greece Fest

Atlas Poetica, 15, 2013


Notes:
1 you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here.
2 The First Nations are the various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis.
3 Spring rolls are a large variety of filled, rolled appetizers. The name is a literal translation of the Chinese chūn juǎn (春[spring]卷 [roll]) .

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Good Friday Haiku by Damir Janjalija

English Original

Good Friday
black crows settled on
the church bell

Simply Haiku, 10:2, Winter 2013

Damir Janjalija


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

耶穌受難日
黑烏鴉停歇
在教堂的鐘上

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

耶稣受难日
黑乌鸦停歇
在教堂的钟上


Bio Sketch

Damir Janjalija, aka Damir Damir, was born in 1977 in Kotor, Montenegro. He is a sailor, a wanderer, and a poet who wakes up every morning to a different now. He published a bilingual haiku book, Imprints of dreams, in 2012.

Hot News: Haiku/Tanka Reprinted in 100 E-Papers

My Dear Readers/Fellow Poets:

Launched on the first day of 2013, NeverEnding Story reached another milestone today:  its haiku/tanka have been reprinted in 100 e-papers. The newest members are The Rock Christopher Daily edited by Rock Christopher, TMP edited by Thamar Manrique, Healing Journey edited by Nadejda, #SDYP THE MOVEMENT edited by KavalonThatsMe, and The #Pressed Leaf Daily edited by bkmackenzie. For more information, see Hot News: Haiku/Tanka Reprinted in 90 E-Papers and Chen-ou Liu’s Haiku/Tanka Featured on VerseWrights and its comment section.

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drunk on reading
Neverending Story ...
shapes of this spring night
(note: Today is the second day of the Chinese Spring Festival)

 Many thanks to all of you who have helped NeverEnding Story grow in any way.

Chen-ou 


Updated, Feb. 5

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