this side of the pane
the wind nothing
but swaying treetops
Haiku Winner, 2012 Robert Frost International Poetry Contest
Julie Warther
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
窗格的這一面
只有風, 不過是
搖曳的樹梢
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
窗格的这一面
只有风, 不过是
摇曳的树梢
Bio Sketch
Julie
Warther lives in Dover, Ohio with her husband and three children. She
serves as the Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of
America.
Below is excerpted from the comments by the judge, Penny Harter:
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Second Place Winner
This Side of the Pane
By Julie Warther
...
Finally, in these two haiku that appear toward the collection’s end, we move from numbness and grief into healing:
this side of the pane
the wind nothing
but swaying treetops
We are numbed, cocooned by the shelter of our house . . . and the storm is not blowing through us as fiercely as it once did. I also hear an echo of “the other side”, meaning the afterlife, but we are still here.
sun soaked chrysalis
the effort
no one sees
Yes, it is hard, but the butterfly will eventually emerge, after the hard work of breaking the chrysalis. And we will emerge from raw sorrow after the hard work of grief. And as I know from my own grief journeys, writing is often a way through the dark into the light.
The implied contrasts (this side vs the other side, stillness vs movement,..) between the two parts of the poem successfully create an interpretative space for the reader's imagination, and it might be beneficial to make a comparative reading of Julie's haiku, which is written in the shasei vein, and Jan Dobb's haiku, which is infused with an emotional depth.
ReplyDeletewindowpane
my fingers trace the dry side
of a rainstorm
Chrysanthemum, April 2012