sudden
as rain,
as desire,
I see her
cloth-covered face
This Short Life: Minimalist Tanka, 2014
Sanford Goldstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
突然地
如同暴雨，
如同激增的慾望，
我看見了她
的棉布遮掩的臉
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
突然地
如同暴雨，
如同激增的欲望，
我看见了她
的棉布遮掩的脸
Bio Sketch
Sanford
Goldstein has been publishing tanka for more than fifty years. He was
born in 1925 and is now 95 years old. Long ago, he wrote haiku, but
decided to focus on tanka. His latest books, three in the last two
years, have each said this would be his last.
... To cram a universe into five lines, to push to the very edge of what the form can do, the poet must be willing to spill thousands of tanka. Those of us among his readers who also attempt to write— those of us who tend to think “Oh, I already wrote about that,” and then stop— we might learn something from Goldstein’s willingness to return to the same themes, the same images, even the same words, in multiple poems. In the section entitled “Death,” for instance, he gives us these two poignant poems:
ReplyDeletesudden
as rain,
as desire,
I see her
cloth-covered face
that white cloth
covering her face
again remembered,
tonight
sixteen years
... which beautifully capture the way in which grief resurges when we least expect it, even after many years. On neighboring pages Goldstein offers two more poems that use the image of “her cloth-covered face,” two others that mention “sixteen years,” and two more that speak of the death of “that young bride.” It is as if he holds an experience up to the light and examines its every facet, trying again and again to grasp its essence and to express the inexpressible. The many similar poems resonate against each other, ringing the experience into the depths of the reader’s memory as it rings in the poet’s— and keeping alive “chains of connection" ...
-- excerpted from Jenny Ward Angyal's "Serving Sadness at the Waffle Shop: A Review of 'This Short Life: Minimalist Tanka by Sanford Goldstein'," accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-poets-roving-thoughts-review-of-this.html
"In the section entitled “Death,” for instance, he gives us these two poignant poems:
Deletesudden
as rain,
as desire,
I see her
cloth-covered face
that white cloth
covering her face
again remembered,
tonight
sixteen years ..."
Evaluated in the thematic context of section entitled, "Death," this visually and emotionally poignant (sudden/ "as rain"/ "as desire") simile employed in the tanka is thematically dialectical in approach (life; "as rain/as desire" vs death; her "cloth-covered face"), successfully adding emotional weight and psychological depth to the tanka.
Note: Sanford's "that white cloth" tanka, read or perceived as a sequel, will be published later in May.