English Original
I set the white table
expecting your arrival
but only wind
the color of grief
blows open my secret door
Modern English Tanka, 1:1, Autumn 2006
Linda Jeannette Ward
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
我擺好白色餐桌
期待你的到來
但只有大風
悲傷的顏色
吹開了我的秘密之門
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
我摆好白色餐桌
期待你的到来
但只有大风
悲伤的颜色
吹开了我的秘密之门
Bio Sketch
Linda Jeannette Ward was best known for her tanka poetry, published in journals internationally, and included in two collections: A Frayed Red Thread (Clinging Vine Press, 2000) and Scent of Jasmine and Brine (Inkling Press, 2007). Her tanka won 2nd and 3rd prizes in the Tanka Society of America's annual competition, as well as four Tanka Splendor Awards. And her collection, a delicate dance of wings, received the Haiku Society of America's 2003 Merit Book Award for Best Book of Haibun.
Enhanced by the multi-sensorily effective use of literary devices, simile and metaphor, the shift in L5 from the physical, domestic setting to the inner, private world of emotions, which functions like a twist/surprise ending, shows the complicated, even illicit (because of the jux. of the wind of "grief" and my "secret" door in Ls 4&5), relationship between the speaker and her loved one.
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