A Room of My Own: Immigrant Past Tanka

long time no see

a friend I met years ago

greets me with hugs ...

my immigrant past

now a foreign country

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXIV: "arsenal of democracy"

Arsenal of Democracy

attacks on Rafah ...

will the sound of bombings

echo, echoing

in the ears of the World

thousands of miles away

how many charred corpses

must the President witness

before his policy changes?

to the clicking of cameras

the spokesman's mouth opens, closes...

police phalanx ...

a keffiyeh-draped student

sings Fida'i

with his hands at his sides

               eyes faraway

protesters

squeezed shoulder to shoulder

thunderous chants

of Cease Fire and Hostage Deal Now

throughout Tel Aviv's night

FYI: The title alludes to Joe Biden's Oct. 19 2023 primetime address, in which he described the American arms industry in Remarkably GlOWING TERMS, noting that, “just as in World War II, today patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom.” For more, see Salon, "Commentary," Nov. 15, 2023: "Good times for the military-industrial complex": American arms makers cashing in on conflict: But is it truly the arsenal of democracy?)

Fida'ī" (Lit.: "Fedayeen warrior") is the national anthem of Palestine:

Warrior, warrior, warrior,

Oh my land, the land of the ancestors

Warrior, warrior, warrior, 

Oh my people, people of eternity ...

The following entry could be read as a sequel to the last tanka:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, X: "Let My People Go"

lingering echoes

from a sea of protesters

in Tel Aviv:

Let My People Go

Elections Now

NeverEnding Story, January 21, 2024

And Haaretz, June 1: Tens of Thousands of Israelis Protest Ruling Coalition, Demand Hostage Deal Following U.S. Gaza Proposal

Police clashed with protesters in Tel Aviv; A hostage's mother said Biden delivered speech 'because he knows Netanyahu can sabotage the deal.' Hostages families led protests at cabinet members homes across Israel to convince them to accept Biden deal

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXV: "the objectors"

The Objectors

handcuffed

blindfolded and dragged away

by policemen

an Arab Israeli arrested

for her anti-war posts 

the White House

in the gathering dark

a lone nurse

on her hunger strike

for Gazan children

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XXII

another sunrise

after days of rain and wind

the tent cities 

grow between highrises, under bridges

along riverbanks and in parks

Added: 

the brick shack

with boarded windows

facing a graveyard

in gathering dusk

a torn-up chapbook: I AM

Added:

surging waves

come and go, come and go ...

alone again

in this motel room

I feel your presence

Added: Game Show, 2024, L

grinning ear to ear

after Manhattanhenge's glow

Trump found guilty 

FYI: Yahoo!News, May 30: Trump found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, becoming the first U.S. president to be convicted of criminal charges

The trial lasted a month and a half and was plenty eventful. In addition to the fiery testimonies of Daniels and Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump was held in contempt of court 10 times and fined $10,000 for violating a gag order against attacking people involved with the trial. 

Added: Game Show, 2024, LI

guilty or not guilty,

does it matter?

same old man's crocodile smile

FYI: American crocodiles live in coastal areas throughout the Caribbean and occur at the northern end of their range in south Florida and the Keys.

And USA Today, May 31: Trump campaign doubles previous one-day record fundraising haul after guilty verdict

Former President Donald Trump's campaign says it raised a whopping $34.8 million in small dollar donations after he was convicted Thursday on 34 felony counts in Manhattan.

Added: Game Show, 2024, LII

day after day

unrolling news after news

of the hush money trial ...

can Trump's guilty verdict 

patch up this broken world?

Added: Game Show, 2024, LIII

Lost & Found

a Mexican parrot screams

guilty, guilty ...

Poetic Musings: Lost Homeland Tanka by Chen-ou Liu

ten years later 

back to my country of birth 

an immigrant again 

unmoored by longing 

for a lost homeland

Honorable Mention, The British Haiku Society Awards 2022

Chen-ou Liu

Commentary (by the Judge): We live in a state of flux. The poet examines how time changes our memories and expectations until they become at odds with the present. In discovering this we develop more empathy for others.

Note: My tanka sequence below, In Taipei, I still long for Taipei, could be read as a further exploration of "how time changes our memories and expectations until they become at odds with the present:"

In Taipei, I still long for Taipei

ten years past

and alone in the moonlight

I have changed

and my hometown has changed

but we haven't changed together

I try to change

this idea of my hometown

people pass me by

with their eyes speaking in a code

that is foreign to me

the vendor asks,

are you from mainland China?

the look in his eyes

speaks the language

of a border guard

this journey

back to my hometown

ends 

with another one

on the road of no return

Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, 13, April 2023

A Room of My Own: O Canada! Our home and native land!

reading between the lives and writing between the lines, XIV

O Canada! Our home and native land!

written in response to the theme for Asian Heritage Month 2022: Continuing a "legacy of greatness”

foreign experience

doesn't count in this country

he repeats ...

on the way home I feel

my feet sticking in asphalt

the Maple Leaf

flapping in summer heat ...

no Canadian experience

no job... no job

no Canadian experience

former lecturer 

now my new coworker 

at the cafe counter 

murmuring, immigrant life

is best understood backwards

from the glass jar

I grasp coins, one day’s worth

of tips

at an upscale cafe ...

my first Canadian experience

poem after poem

I write myself, an immigrant,

into Silence --

the void place where I wait

for you, Canada, to read

FYI: The title is taken from the first line of Canada's national anthem

Added: Three Hundred and Fortieth Entry,  Coronavirus Poetry Diary

laid off ...

drifting among strangers 

six feet apart

Added: reading between the lives and writing between the lines, XV

rain-stained chalk scrawl: 

this unhoused person's body

as his last address

Added: written in response both to Ottawa Citizen's May 17 opinion column: "Who won the final 2022 Ontario election debate?" and to the Apocryphal Mark Twain, who claimed, Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.

election debate

one stray barks at another

barking at another

A Room of My Own: Variants of Concern Tanka

Two Hundred and Eighty-Fourth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

variants of concern ...

I dip my immigrant life

in formalin

encase it in this room

of 20-square-meter freedom

Added: Two Hundred and Eighty-Fifth Entry

singing and dancing

around a covid gravesite ...

a circle of women 

with their faces covered 

in white powder

FYI: For decades voodoo has been portrayed in Western films as a black magic cult; however, it is an official and widely practiced religion in Haiti. For more, see Part I, Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided of PBS's four-part series on the influence of African descent on Latin America, produced and hosted by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Added: Two Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Entry

awake alone

this face in the motel mirror ...

prolonged quarantine

FYI: Fourth wave "in full force" in Germany as WHO warns Europe is "back at epicentre," Sky News, Nov. 5 

One Man's Maple Moon: Microbiology and Hospital Bathrooms Tanka by Hazel Hall

English Original

her degree
in microbiology
from Nepal
how carefully she cleans
hospital bathrooms

Editor's Choice, Cattails, 2017

Hazel Hall


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

來自尼泊爾
擁有微生物學
的學位
現在她小心翼翼地清理
醫院的廁所

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

来自尼泊尔
拥有微生物学
的学位
现在她小心翼翼地清理
医院的厕所


Bio Sketch

Hazel Hall is a Canberra poet, musicologist and convenor of the School of Music Poets. She has published in a wide range of local and overseas journals and anthologies. Her publications include Sugar Loaf and Humming Birds with John Collard (2013), Eggshell Sky (2017) and Moonlight Over the Siding (forthcoming).

A Room of my Own: Thanksgiving Leftovers Tanka

thanksgiving leftovers
with a big bed of greens ...
eating alone
in this attic room
smelly from my immigrant past

Poetic Musings: Sea Foam Tanka by Chen-ou Liu

a kid trying

to kick sea foam back

where it came from

I remember the first time

a white man yelled at me

Runner-Up, Tanka Section, 2016 British Haiku Society Awards

Chen-ou Liu

Judge's Commentary: This bold and thought-provoking tanka is uncomfortable without being confrontational. It provides food for thought, in a world where it is much needed. In particular, the third line 'where it came from' is fascinating. This sentence alone, can be seen to sum up the tanka, and splendidly so. Racism is not something all of us encounter; it is multifaceted, and often hidden. Yet the poet succeeds in bringing the issue to the surface, using simple straightforward images, such as 'a white man yelled at me' and 'to kick sea foam back'. The sea in its vastness, in this context, can be seen to represent those things we cannot fully grasp or understand, something that perhaps makes us feel small, afraid even. The use of 'kick' implies aggression. Add to it, the simple recollection of an event that happened in the past – 'I remember the first time' – but is still playing on the person's mind. . . Like sea foam reaching the shore, so does a memory resurface here, prompted by the simple act of a child? This is a great example of how tanka can be used to explore personal experience in a wider cultural and political context, without losing its lyricism or reflective nature. In such, it has at its core, the power to instigate change.

a kid trying
to kick sea foam back
where it came from

I remember the first time

a white man yelled at me

... This bold and thought-provoking tanka is uncomfortable without being confrontational. It provides food for thought, in a world where it is much needed. In particular, the third line 'where it came from' is fascinating. This sentence alone, can be seen to sum up the tanka, and splendidly so...


Below  is my tanka prose written in response to the sociopolitically charged statement above:

Re-Homing
for Li Bai

go back
to where you came from ...
slowly, I push
his middle finger
to a vagabond moon

drinking alone
under the autumn moon
for a moment
I speak to it
in my mother tongue

Where is my home? Is it Taipei, capital of the Republic of China, aka Taiwan, a modern metropolis with Japanese colonial lanes, busy shopping streets and towering glass office buildings, that place where I was born and raised, that place I often complained about and wanted to flee?

Where is my home? Is it the County of Mount Dragon in Hunan Province of the People's Republic of China, my father's hometown with its rushing waterfalls and misty mountain peaks, a place I've never set foot in?

Where is my home? Is it Ajax, Ontario, a bedroom suburb of row upon row of single-family detached houses in the richest province of Canada? Here I own a front lawn, a backyard, and struggle with a life in transition and translation ...

Haibun Today, 10:4, December 2016

Note: The Republic of China (Taiwan)  is the 14th freest economy in the world, yet still not recognized by the UN.

A Room of My Own: Small Cage Tanka

alone again
with my drunken shadow ...
singing like a skylark
in the small cage
of this promised land

A Room of My Own: Old Wound

for Salman Rushdie, author of Imaginary Homelands

first winter light ...
the snake of my desire
for the past
lies coiled around
the base of my spine

an immigrant
living on the winter land
of nostalgia:
the past is my home
although it’s lost

I hear
the siren singing
Home, Sweet Home ...
a part of me
jumps off the cliff

Chinese New Year

on the TV screen ...

I whisper of home

in a voice

now foreign to me

A Room of My Own: Immigration Haiku

[North] American literature has always been immigrant. -- Salman Rushdie

the Kodak smile

of a new immigrant

first snowflakes

misty Canada Day

three immigrant children

build a sandcastle

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XXIV

new immigrant
to the land of hungry ghosts
of the Muse
I write love tanka
in crimson red 

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Notes:

1 You can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here.

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XVII

in Search of Lost Time
a la recherche du temps perdu
new Canadian,
old Quebecer... two solitudes
in the Toronto sunlight

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013


Notes:

1 you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

2 The origin of the name "Toronto" comes from the Huron word toran-ten, which literally means meeting place.

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XIII

Mr. Lou
your foreign credentials ...
pinned by his white gaze
I'm just another immigrant
with black slanted eyes

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Note: you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, VI

red question mark
added to the title
of my last essay,
We Are All Immigrants:
The Past as a Foreign Country

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Note: you can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, I

a new immigrant
in the land of Snow White
I practice
A,B,C... by talking
to the bathroom mirror

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013


Note: You can read the whole sequence here