English Original
a red
plastic whistle
I blow,
at the anti-war
demonstration
Sanford Goldstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在反戰
示威遊行中，
我猛吹
一個紅色
塑膠口哨
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在反战
示威遊行中，
我猛吹
一个红色
塑胶口哨
Bio Sketch
a red
plastic whistle
I blow,
at the anti-war
demonstration
Sanford Goldstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在反戰
示威遊行中，
我猛吹
一個紅色
塑膠口哨
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在反战
示威遊行中，
我猛吹
一个红色
塑胶口哨
Bio Sketch
Sanford
Goldstein has been publishing tanka for more than fifty years. He was
born in 1925 and is now 91 years old. Long ago, he wrote haiku, but
decided to focus on tanka. His latest books, three in the last two
years, have each said this would be his last.
Sanford's cinematic minimalist tanka ( 10 words in total) zooms in very close to a part (L1:"a red"; extreme close-up shot) of a plastic whistle (Ls 1&2; close-up), and gradually zoom out ("I blow"; medium shot)to include the people (L4: "at the anti-war"; long shot) in the demonstration (L5; extreme long shot).
ReplyDeleteHis tanka effectively builds, line/shot by line/shot, to an unexpected yet sociopolitically powerful ending that has the most weight and reveals the anti-war theme.