ferris wheel,
go round and round!
memories last
one day for you
a lifetime for me
Ferris Wheel, 2006
Kyoko Kuriki
translated by Kozue Uzawa and Amelia Fielden
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
摩天輪，
周而復始地旋轉！
對你而言
只是一天的記憶
對我來說卻是一輩子
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
摩天轮，
周而复始地旋转！
对你而言
只是一天的记忆
对我来说却是一辈子
Bio Sketch
Born in 1954 in Aichi, Japan, Kyoko Kuriki is the winner of several major tanka awards, including the Yomiuri Award for Literature. Her fifth award-winning tanka collection, Natsu no Ushiro, is translated into English and titled Behind Summer.
Is the poet addressing the Ferris wheel or a lost lover? Ambiguity is one characteristic of tanka; another is linkage of outer and inner worlds.
ReplyDelete-- excerpted from "Book Review: Rooted in rootlessness: Ancient poetic form meets an age of anomie" by Mark Austin
Kyoko's effective use of syntactic parallelism in Ls 4&5 adds balance and rhythm to the poem that give ideas a smoother flow.