English Original
driving home
from Sunday church service
my bobblehead Jesus
keeps nodding to the plastic flowers
on my dashboard
A Hundred Gourds, 1:1, December 2011
Al Fogel
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
主日崇拜結束後
在回家的路上
我的搖頭耶穌娃娃
向儀表板上的塑料花
不斷地點頭
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
主日崇拜结束后
在回家的路上
我的摇头耶稣娃娃
向仪表板上的塑料花
不断地点头
Bio Sketch
Al Fogel , 68, began his haiku journey about 3 years ago and has been writing haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun ever since. Some of his work has appeared in leading haijin journals around the globe. He has recently published two books: So Little Time and Holding Hand-helds: Senryu for the Cyber
Written in a matter-of-fact tone, this "Sunday church service" tanka is an excellent example of using irony ("bobblehead" "Jesus," a religious savior with a disproportionately large bobbing head) to make fun of/poke fun at church goers (implied from L2) through an understatement of Ls 3-5 .
ReplyDeleteFYI: Bobblehead: a figurine with a disproportionately large head mounted on a spring so that it bobs up and down, often made as a "caricature of a famous person."
Fore more examples, see my "To the Lighthouse posts," "A Rhetorical Device, Irony," accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2022/11/to-lighthouse-rhetorical-device-irony.html, and "A Rhetorical Device, Understatement ," accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2022/10/to-lighthouse-rhetorical-device.html