English Original
election rally
purple loosestrife spreads
along the river
An Invisible Accordion, 1995
Winona Baker
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
選舉集會
紫色珍珠菜沿著河岸
蔓延開來
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
选举集会
紫色珍珠菜沿着河岸
蔓延开来
Bio Sketch
Winona Baker was born in March 18, 1924 and moved to British Columbia, Canada in 1930. Living in Nanaimo, she raised four children with her husban. A haiku specialist, she received the top global prize in the 1989 World Haiku Contest in honour of Matsuo Basho’s 300th anniversary. She published Moss-Hung Trees. The title came from her prize-winning haiku. Her work had been translated into Japanese, French, Greek, Croatian, Romanian, and Yugoslavian. She passed away in Nanaimo on October 23, 2020.
L1 sets theme and mood while the seemingly attractive scene of purple loosestrife spreading along the river in Ls 2&3 could be read as an authorial comment on the problems caused by L1.
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a comparative reading of my election rally haiku below:
election rally
around a banana
summer flies
VerseWrights, April 16, 2013
FYI: Dense purple loosestrife stands can clog irrigation canals, degrade farmland, and reduce forage value of pastures. Dense stands also reduce water flow in ditches and the thick growth of purple loosestrife can impede boat travel.