I’ve this memory --
riding my father’s shoulders
into the ocean,
the poetry of things
before I could speak
Tanka of Michael McClintock, Pinterest, 2011
Michael McClintock
Commentary: ...Even a child that cannot yet speak, may, like the readers of this tanka, intuitively grasp the poetry of a moment in time that defines meaning, significance or beauty in a novel and profound way. William Least Heat Moon spoke of those defining times in our lives most eloquently in his book, Blue Highways. For him, the moment was sharing a piece of old-fashioned buttermilk pie with new-found friends who had taken him in for the night on his long journey across the United States. For Michael McClintock a childhood memory was poetry and it became poetry for us as well as for himself, not through the use of excessive or impressive words, but through the sharing of an image that takes us into the experience with him. Tanka is traditionally imagistic, possessing the power and magic of images that take us beneath words to the essence of experience...
-- excerpted from "A Poet's Roving Thoughts: Dreaming Room" by Rebecca Drouilhet
It might be interesting to do a thematic comparative reading of my tanka below:
For my father who was born in mainland China, lived most of his adult life in Taiwan, died on Jan. 5 2022 and was buried there
this dream loop:
riding on my shoulders
into the Taiwan Strait
Father cries out, Mama
wait for me, I'm coming home
No comments:
Post a Comment