it’s hard
to prove racism --
something
dark and intangible
accumulating inside me
I’m a Traveler, 2011
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
非常困難
去證明種族主義 --
在我的內心
一種黑暗難以觸摸的感覺
不斷地在積聚
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
非常困难
去证明种族主义 --
在我的内心
一种黑暗难以触摸的感觉
不断地在积聚
Bio Sketch
Kozue Uzawa is a retired university professor. She works as editor of the English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama
(Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald
Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia
University.
Structured into two parts and five poetic phrases (ku), the upper verse sets the theme while the shift, from proving racism to revealing its psychological impact, in the lower verse makes Kozue's timely and heartfelt tanka thematically significant and emotionally effective.
ReplyDeleteTwo of my tanka below, combined with Kozue's tanka, could be read as a tanka sequence about racism and its impact:
ReplyDeletecolorblindness
heats up debate on racism
we used to be friends
he gives me the finger
I push it toward the moon
(Eucalypt, 10, 2011)
it’s hard
to prove racism --
something
dark and intangible
accumulating inside me
behind my back
they whisper slanted eyes ...
in a dream
I unzip my skin,
put on another
(Highly Commended, 2014 Kokako Tanka Competition)