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.