when the sun sinks low
refugees' shadows conglobulate
over the wired border ...
a tender lullaby
softens the wind
Back Cover Tanka, Ribbons, 12:1, Winter 2016
Lavana Kray
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
當太陽西沉
難民的陰影縮擠
在鐵絲網邊界 ...
溫柔的搖籃曲
削弱了大風
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
当太阳西沉
难民的阴影缩挤
在铁丝网边界 ...
温柔的摇篮曲
削弱了大风
Bio Sketch
Lavana
Kray is from Iasi – Romania. She is passionate about writing and
photography. Nature and the events of her life provide ideas and
inspiration for writing. She has won several awards, including WHA
Master Haiga Artist 2015. Her work has been published in many print and online journals, including Haiku Canada Review, The Mainichi, Ginyu, Daily Haiga, Frogpond, Haiga Online, Ribbons, Eucalypt, Acorn, and Ardea. She was chosen for Haiku Euro Top 100, 2015. This is her blog: http://photohaikuforyou.blogspot.ro
The best tanka, with the compressed intensity and specific imagery that the form encourages, can paint a twenty-plus word picture that rivals what a visual artist can evoke. Lavana Kray's tanka lets me see the refugees, both their struggle and uncertainty in the first three lines and, with the shift in the last two lines, their hope. Whether deliberate or not, by pointing to the "refugees' shadows" and by hearing "a tender lullaby" but not showing us the refugees themselves, the tanka mirrors the refugees' situation: they are still at the "wired border" and have not reached a place where they can show themselves.
ReplyDelete-- excerpted from "The Back Cover," Ribbons, 12:1, Winter 2016, p.3
"... Lavana Kray's tanka lets me see the refugees, both their struggle and uncertainty in the first three lines and, with the shift in the last two lines, their hope..."
The suggestive power of this timely and sociopolitically conscious tanka lies in both push and pull forces demonstrated in the thematically and emotionally dialectical relationship between the two parts (Ls 1-3 and Ls 4&5) of the poem.