English Original
snake
out of its skin
out of itself
The Heron's Nest, 23:1, March 2021
Michael Dylan Welch
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
一條蛇
脫一層皮
擺脫舊我
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
一条蛇
脱一层皮
摆脱旧我
Bio Sketch
Michael Dylan Welch is the founder of the Tanka Society of America (2000), and co-founder of Haiku North America conference (1991) and the American Haiku Archives (1996). In 2010 he also started National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), which takes place every February, with an active Facebook page. His personal website is www.graceguts.com, which features hundreds of essays, reviews, reports, and other content, including examples of his published poetry.
Michael's snake haiku is an allusive tribute to one of the most influential haiku poets:
ReplyDeleteLily:
out of the water…
out of itself
The American Haiku magazine, 1963
Nicholas A. Virgilio
And the last line, "out of itself," is textually same as that of Virgilio's haiku, but thematically different from his, adding one more layer of meaning (renewal or growth) to the haiku.
The is an example of effectively using "honkadori (allusive variation)."
For more, see "To the Lighthouse: A Brief Look at Honkadori (Allusive Variation) through a Frog Haiku Lens," accessed at https://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2021/09/to-lighthouse-brief-look-at-honkadori.html