Thursday, July 9, 2020

One Man's Maple Moon: Petal Tanka by Claudia Coutu Radmore

English Original

a petal falls
into my afternoon sleep
slips through that world
between his being there
and not

fish spine picked clean, 2018 

Claudia Coutu Radmore


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一片花瓣
掉入我的午睡之中
穿越那個世界
橫跨他所在之處
和他消失不見的地方

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一片花瓣
掉入我的午睡之中
穿越那个世界
跨越他所在之处
和他消失不见的地方


Bio Sketch

Claudia Coutu Radmore is the author of  fish spine picked clean (2018, Éditions des petits nuages, Montreal, Canada),  and Your Hands Discover Me/ Tes mains me découvrent  (2010, Éditions du tanka francophone, Montreal). She is the  President of Haiku Canada, and has been proofreading, and selecting tanka, for Gusts.

1 comment:

  1. Claudia's one-sentence dream tanka effectively builds, line by line, to a visually and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of loss and grief. And on second reading,the prefatory image of a falling petal successfully carries symbolic significance and adds emotional weight to the tanka.

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