the giraffe
with a long neck
looking afar …
looking for green fields
in his memories
International Tanka, 5, 2019
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
長頸鹿
伸長它的脖子
眺望遠方 …
它在尋找記憶中
的綠色田野
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
长颈鹿
伸长它的脖子
眺望远方…
它在寻找记忆中
的绿色田野
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.
Enhanced by the effective use of repetition, Kozue's environmentally-conscious tanka builds, poetic phrase/line by poetic phrase/line, to an unexpected yet thematically significant and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of environmental degradation, especially habitat destruction/the extinction of wildlife.
ReplyDelete