Thursday, September 24, 2020

One Man's Maple Moon: Black Negligee Tanka by Margaret Chula

English Original

the black negligee
that I bought for your return
hangs in my closet
              day by day plums ripen
              and are picked clean by birds

Always Filling Always Full, 2001

Margaret Chula


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

為了你的歸來
我所買的黑色睡衣
掛在衣櫥裡
        李子一天天地熟透
        就被一群鳥吃光

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

为了你的归来
我所买的黑色睡衣
挂在衣橱里
        李子一天天地熟透
        就被一群鸟吃光


Bio Sketch
 
Margaret Chula has published two collections of tanka: Always Filling, Always Full and Just This. She has promoted tanka through her one-woman dramatization, “Three Women Who Loved Love”, which traveled to Krakow, New York, Boston, Portland, Ottawa, and Ogaki, Japan. Maggie currently serves as president of the Tanka Society of America.

1 comment:

  1. ...here indentation is used to emphasize the poem’s two component movements. Rather than a personal comment or reflection, Margaret Chula’s final two lines offer a stark “objective correlative” to the image and mood of the preceding three lines, encapsulating the poet’s thoughts in implicit metaphor. The juxtaposition is surprising, and the despairing realization is made even more powerful by not being named—the bleak image of the ripened plums “picked clean by birds” says it all... the two images here are not directly compared but set in sharp contrast...

    -- excerpted from "Introduction to The Tanka Anthology" by Michael McClintock

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