Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Butterfly Dream: White Chrysanthemum Haiku by Roberta Beary

English Original

white lie
the mirror doubles
the white chrysanthemum

The Unworn Necklace

Roberta Beary


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

白色謊言
鏡子反映雙重的
白菊花

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

白色谎言
镜子反映双重的
白菊花


Bio Sketch

Roberta Beary is the haibun editor of Modern Haiku. Her book of short poems, The Unworn Necklace (Snapshot Press, 2007, 1st HB ed. 2011), was named a Poetry Society of America award finalist and a Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award prize winner. She is on the editorial staff of the annual  Red Moon Anthology and a longtime member of Towpath, the Washington, DC haiku group.  She is married to the writer Frank Stella.  Her website can be accessed at www.robertabeary.com

3 comments:

  1. Roberta's skillful use of repetition and the good verb choice make this reflective haiku emotionally effective. In the poem, "white" is layered with multiple meanings, lexical, symbolic and emotive.

    I just finished reading A Companion to Poetic Genre (first edition, 2012), "a collection of essays that examines genres and forms with longer traditions in English (p. 281)." In the book, there is a chapter (pp. 277-92), entitled "In a Sea of Indeterminacy: Fourteen Ways of Looking at Haiku," on the haiku aesthetics. In his essay, Peter Harris gives The Unworn Necklace, a one-page long positive review (pp. 283-4), stressing that "Beary's poems deserve the unusual recognition they received outside the haiku community. (p. 284).

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  2. Thank you so much Chen-ou; I am very honored. PS The work you do on NeverEnding Story blog for the global haiku community is awesome!

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  3. Hi! Roberta:

    Many thanks for your words of encouragement and for your support of my project.

    Chen-ou

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