Thursday, May 8, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Pressed Butterfly Haiku by David McMurray

English Original

Turning to the page
where mother had left behind
pressed butterfly

David McMurray


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

翻到母親上次
所閱讀的那一頁
壓扁的蝴蝶

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

翻到母亲上次
所阅读的那一页
压扁的蝴蝶


Bio Sketch

David McMurray, professor of haiku in the graduate school at The International University of Kagoshima in Japan, editor of the Asahi Haikuist Network since 1995, and winner of The R.H. Blyth Award 2013.

13 comments:

  1. The opening lines could refer to the mother's diary, notebook, manuscript, or her favorite book, each of which played a distinct role in her life, and the symbolically rich L3 could be read functionally as a bookmark or literally as the description of an image.

    The use of the past perfect tense in L2, combined with "pressed" in L3, adds emotional weight and historical depth to the poem.

    This is a good example of a writerly text/haiku (as explored in my "To the Lighthouse: Denis M. Garrison's Dreaming Room and Roland Barthes's Writerly Text," http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/2014/05/to-lighthouse-denis-m-garrisons.html):

    The writerly text is a perpetual present, upon which no consequent language (which would inevitably make it past) can be superimposed; the writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world (the world as function) is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular system (Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of languages (S/Z, p.5)

    Based on the definition above, a writerly text is not fully complete, and it actively encourages the reader to take part in the creation of meaning(s) of the text, which means the reader is given "dreaming room" to fill in the gaps between the lines of the text, becoming an active participant, co-author. In contrast to a writerly text, a readerly text does not locate the reader as a site of the production of meaning(s) (i.e., the reader as a co-producer), but only as the receiver of a fixed, predetermined reading

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    Replies
    1. I am agree with the review that the writerly text is ourselves writing. Surely it is haiku for all time, isn't it?

      Delete
  2. 翻到母親上次
    所閱讀的那一頁
    壓扁的蝴蝶
    so, in my dreaming room, it seems that I have no idea why I have to be a` murderer` to kill my wonderful memories about my mother and me.it is a result of I read this text.

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  3. A very interesting haiku with so many layers and interpretations...death and longing...the past returning.

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  4. I feel love in this haiku. A quiet haiku makes me think. An empty room, an opened book. A blue butterfly lies on the page. Lives could fade away one day but never will love. Memory is beautiful as a butterfly on the book.

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  5. Ftatsa, Harry, and Xue Bai:

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

    Chen-ou

    ReplyDelete
  6. After reading this haiku, I really can't stop missing my mum.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Share my haiku with you:

      a full moon
      between mother and me
      the Pacific

      Modern Haiku, 44:1, winter/spring 2013

      Chen-ou

      Delete
  7. The poem was touching.mother's love is the greatest love, is the safest love. always stay with we.

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  8. The breakfast
    what I wolfed down
    from mother's love.
    When I remember it,I miss my mom!

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  9. Emerge from chrysalis
    make the world colourful
    butterfly dream

    ReplyDelete