English Original
each day now
I think about myself
in the third person
… that woman
with breast cancer
Cattails, October, 2019
Keitha Keyes
現在開始的每一天
當我想到我自己
都是以第三人稱
… 那個女人
患有乳癌
现在开始的每一天
当我想到我自己
都是以第三人称
… 那个女人
患有乳癌
Bio Sketch
Keitha Keyes lives in Sydney, surrounded by antique irons and ship models. She enjoys writing tanka, haiku, senryu, cherita and related genres. Her work is published in many journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas.
Keitha's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku) /line by poetic phrase (ku) /line, to a thematically significant and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of "illness identity."
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a thematic comparative reading of the following three tanka:
that hill
shaped like the breast
I have lost
will be adorned
with dead flowers in winter
Breasts of Snow, 2004
Fumiko Nakajo
after surgery
both of us said nothing...
her red bra
in the corner of my mind
begins to change color
Second Place, the 60th Annual Contest 2012 held by Pennsylvania Poetry Society
Chen-ou Liu
for your eyes only,
she says with a shy nod --
I think about this
then raise a hand to caress
her remaining breast
Selected Tanka, Gusts, 26, Fall/Winter 2017
Michael Dylan Welch
FYI, Illness Identity: It is an aspect of one's experience of oneself that is affected by both the experience of objective aspects of illness as well as by how each individual person makes meaning of the “illness.” ...
...Researchers have conceptualized four different illness identity states: rejection, engulfment, acceptance, and enrichment. Each of these states have ramifications for our mental and physical well-being.