English Original
picking
pumpkin flower buds
for salad
I think of Cinderella’s
life after the wedding
Eucalypt, 9, 2010
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
採摘
南瓜花蕾
作為沙拉之用
我想到灰姑娘的
婚後生活
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
采摘
南瓜花蕾
作为沙拉之用
我想到灰姑娘的
婚后生活
Bio Sketch
Kozue Uzawa is a retired university professor. She works as editor of the English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia University.
The contrast between domestic chores (Ls 1-3) and fairytale life (Ls 4&5) is thematically significant and emotionally poignant.
ReplyDeleteAnd the use of enjambment between Ls 4&5 makes L5 (not just about Cinderella’s life, but every married woman's) having both the most weight and a universal appeal
And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of my tanka below:
my marriage:
a roof with the skylight
propped by four walls
dulls my yearning
for a life of shooting stars
NeverEnding Story, March 15, 2023