Sunday, April 26, 2020

One Man's Maple Moon: Unspoken Words Tanka by Martha Magenta

English Original

snow falls
heavier
I didn’t know
how much unspoken words
could hurt

Moonbathing, 13, Fall/Winter 016

Martha Magenta


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

雪下得
更大了
我不知道
沒說出來的話
可能會傷人

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

雪下得
更大了
我不知道
没说出来的话
可能会伤人


Bio Sketch

Martha Magenta lived in England, UK. Her haiku and tanka had appeared in a number of journals, and anthologies. She was awarded Honourable Mentions for her haiku in The Fifth Annual Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku  Awards, 2017, and in the 71st Basho Memorial English Haiku Contest, 2017, and for her tanka in UHTS  “Fleeting Words” Tanka Contest 2017.

1 comment:

  1. There is an implied simile for an icy relationship effectively established between Ls 1&2 and Ls 3-5: the hurt caused by the speaker's unspoken words is as least as heavy as the snowfall.

    And this heart-wrenching tanka works well as a middle poem in this "relationship tanka sequence:"

    snow on snow ...
    the silent wall between us
    stretching
    until it singszzzz
    almost about to snap

    Bamboo Hut, 2016

    Marilyn Fleming

    snow falls
    heavier
    I didn’t know
    how much unspoken words
    could hurt

    Moonbathing, 13, Fall/Winter 016

    Martha Magenta

    side by side walking
    in the world of one color
    I see her
    hunting for words to break
    this snowy silence

    Wah, April 2015

    Chen-ou Liu

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