English Original
in my high-rise
apartment
ear to the floor
I listen for a heartbeat
anything
The One That Flies Back, 2015
Barry George
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在我的高樓
大廈裡面
耳朵貼近地板
我傾聽心跳
或是任何聲音
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在我的高楼
大厦里面
耳朵贴近地板
我倾听心跳
或是任何声音
Bio Sketch
Barry George is the author of Wrecking Ball and Other Urban Haiku and The One That Flies Back, a tanka collection. A regular contributor to haiku and tanka journals, he has won numerous short-form competitions, including First Prize in the Gerald R. Brady Contest. He lives and teaches in Philadelphia.
Barry's tanka effectively builds, line by line, to an unexpected yet thematically significant and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of loneliness. And L5 adds more emotional weight to the tanka.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fine example of character/persona tanka. And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparative reading of the following tanka.
locked windows
and a dead bolt
used to comfort her;
tonight on the 9th floor
she plays some Bill Evans
A Hundred Gourds, 1:1, December 2011
Marian Olson
For further discussion, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, "Character/Persona Tanka," accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2022/09/to-lighthouse-characterpersona-tanka.html