Sunday, January 31, 2016

One Man's Maple Moon: Loneliness Tanka by Kozue Uzawa

English Original

what is the colour
of loneliness?
prairies
in front of me
already brown

I'm a Traveler, 2011

Kozue Uzawa


Chinese Translation (Traditional)


寂寞
是什麼顏色?
在我前面
的大草原
已成黃褐色

Chinese Translation (Simplified)


寂寞
是什么颜色?
在我前面
的大草原
已成黄褐色 


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.

1 comment:

  1. The haunting image of expansive and withered prairies visually and emotionally enhances the point made in the opening rhetorical question -- [color of] loneliness.

    Within such a short space of 13 words, Kozue skillfully conveys a sense of desperate loneliness.

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