English Original
like a chainsaw
slicing the quietness
your anger
shears my life into pieces
ready for the fire
Moonbathing, Spring/Summer 2018
Cynthia West
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
像電鋸
切過寂靜
你的憤怒
把我的生活割成碎片
準備用大火燒
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
像电锯
切过寂静
你的愤怒
把我的生活割成碎片
准备用大火烧
Bio Sketch
Cynthia West is known for painting, photography, digital imaging, and book arts. Her works are in collections world wide. Visit her web-site: www.westvision.us. She is the author six collections of poetry. For Beauty Way, 1990, and 1000 Stone Buddhas, 1993, published by Inked Wingbeat, Santa Fe. Rainbringer, 2004, The New Sun, 2007, In the Center of the Field, 2010, A Clear Drop, 2015, the last four published by Sunstone Press, Santa Fe. She is currently gathering poems for the next volume.
Enhanced by a visually sharp and emotionally charged simile ("anger" like an "chainsaw," Ls 1&3 ), Cynthia's tanka effectively builds, line/poetic phrase by line/poetic phrase, to a poignantly violent ending that reveals the theme of relationship/life destruction.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fine example of tanka written in the style of "Onihishigitei."
... Onihishigitei is the style of demon-quelling force, and it is characterized by its “strong or even vulgar diction.” (Brower, p. 406) This style refers to poems whose “imagery or treatment conveys an impression of violence. Such poems are found in particular in Book XVI of Man’yoshū." (Brower and Miner, p. 247) ...
-- excerpted from "To the Lighthouse: Onihishigitei, Style of Demon-Quelling Force," accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2013/05/to-lighthouse-onihishigitei-style-of.html