silence comes
on little cat feet …
soft and warm
as a late-summer breeze
or a goodnight kiss
Susan Constable
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
寂靜像小貓般
悄悄地到來 ...
它的柔軟和溫暖
如同夏末的微風
或是晚安之吻
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
寂静像小猫般
悄悄地到来 ...
它的柔软和温暖
如同夏末的微风
或是晚安之吻
Bio Sketch
Susan Constable’s tanka appear in numerous journals and anthologies, including Take Five. Her tanka collection, The Eternity of Waves,
was 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.
The allusive simile in the upper verse establishes the theme, and the evocative tactile images in the lower verse make the theme come alive and enhance the atmosphere of the poem.
ReplyDeleteSusan's use of Honkadori (allusive variation) is emotionally effective, adding aesthetic depth to the poem.
This lovely tanka makes me see "silence" from a new perspective.
For more information about the technique of Honkadori, see "To the Lighthouse: Plagiarism or Honkadori (allusive variation)," http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/2013/02/to-lighthouse-plagiarism-or-honkadori.html
Note:
"Fog" by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
According to Rein Raud's groundbreaking study on the use of Honkadori ("An Investigation of the Conditions of Literary Borrowings in late Heian and Early Kamakura Japan," The Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives, pp. 143-155), there are different techniques of borrowing, alluding and imitating that could be used for poetic practice, and different rules applied for their use:
ReplyDelete1 Simple quotation (as in the case of Susan's tanka)
2 Inclusive imagery/expression
3 Contrastive feeling (this kind of allusion is most ancient)
4 Inclusion of narrative
5 Inclusion of personality
I"ll discuss these techniques in the forthcoming "To the Lighthouse" post.