tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post5606377067884150628..comments2024-03-28T12:59:41.910-04:00Comments on NeverEnding Story: One Man's Maple Moon: To Do List Tanka by Lesley Anne SwansonChen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐http://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-57843803310335620002017-02-19T16:05:40.590-05:002017-02-19T16:05:40.590-05:00Technically speaking, this is a good example of wh...Technically speaking, this is a good example of what American poet Archibald MacLeish calls "coupled images:" One image is established by words which make it sensuous and vivid to the the eyes or ears or touch-to any of the senses. Another image is put beside it. And "a meaning appears which is neither the meaning of one image nor the meaning of the other nor even the sum of both but a consequence of both -- a consequence of both in their conjunction, in their relation to each other" (Krishna Rayan, Suggestion and Statement in Poetry, p.69). It is in the "space between'" that the poem grows. <br /><br />The collocation of a to-do list and a bite deep into the apple core makes the poem emotionally effective. Lesley's tanka reminds me of the following poem by Robert Kusch:<br /><br />Lightning on<br />the horizon<br />my child<br />takes a huge<br />bite from a pearChen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐https://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.com