Wednesday, January 14, 2015

One Man's Maple Moon: Skywriting Tanka by Debbie Strange

English Original

bats dart
in and out of light
skywriting
we no longer speak
each other's language

A Hundred Gourds, 3:2, March 2014

Debbie Strange


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在天空中
蝙蝠飛進飛出光亮
像似寫作
我們彼此不再說
對方的語言

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在天空中
蝙蝠飞进飞出光亮
像似写作
我们彼此不再说
对方的语言


Bio Sketch

Debbie Strange belongs to the Writers' Collective of Manitoba and several haiku and tanka organizations. Her writing has received awards and been published in numerous journals. She is a singer-songwriter and photographer whose photographs have been published and exhibited.  She is currently assembling a haiga collection. Visit her on twitter @Debbie_Strange

1 comment:

  1. Unlike a classic waka whose jo ("prefatory image") is logically metaphoric or at least resonates closely with the emotional point of the tanka, the prefatory image (depicted in Ls 1-3) of Debbie's tanka forms a thematically and emotionally dialectical relationship with the main statement (Ls 4&5) of the poem, which sparks the reader's reflection on human relationships.

    And the issue of language, written (as implied in L3) or spoken (as indicated in L5), takes on metaphoric significance.

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