English Original
ebb tide
turning to look back
at my footprints
Issa's Untidy Hut, July 23, 2010
Peggy Heinrich
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
退潮
回首注視
我的足跡
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
退潮
回首注视
我的足迹
Bio Sketch
Peggy Heinrich's haiku have appeared in almost every haiku journal both nationally and internationally and in many anthologies. Awards include Top Prize in the Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest in both 2009 and 2010. Peeling an Orange, a collection of her haiku with photographs by John Bolivar, was published in 2009 by Modern English Tanka Press. Forward Moving Shadows, a collection of her tanka, with photographs by John Bolivar, was published in 2012.
In some ways, this is a perfect modern haiku: precise, concise, a literal image capturing a specific moment that resonates mightily. There is not one wrong word here and each carries its weight. Three words are at this poems core: ebb, turning, and back. What each one of those words means individually and collectively makes the poem come together. It is something anyone whose been to a shoreline has experienced. Mixed in that experience is the cosmic feel of place, a sense of self as self, a sense of self as part of the whole, a sort of returning, a vague bit of romantic nostalgia ...
ReplyDeleteBut, ah, I'm projecting and that's the point of great haiku, the interaction of reader and poem, bringing one's own experience to bear. The poem has a feeling of ending, but it could just as well be about beginning, or both.
A genuine haiku moment, so simple it might easily be overlooked, as we overlook things, ordinary things, each and every day. Haiku moments. Moments.
The now.
-- excerpted from Don Wentworth, "Blues and Haiku," accessed at https://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/2010/07/blues-haiku-big-mama-thornton-peggy.html
And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of the haiku in my haibun below:
Meeting Place
For Mary Macdonell who encourages me to write in English
I wander the streets of Toronto all morning, thinking of moving yet again. I lean against a wall, weary, and feel the urge to cry out: “I’m tired of starting over!"
snow-covered street
looking back
which footprints are mine?
Notes from the Gean, Vol 3:1, June 2011