English Original
I want to polish you
with my hair
let strands all over your body
become part of you
like thistles caught in bark
fish spine picked clean, 2018
Claudia Coutu Radmore
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
我想用我的頭髮
擦亮你的身體
並覆蓋它
成為你的一部分
就像是被樹皮夾住的薊
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
我想用我的头发
擦亮你的身体
并覆盖它
成为你的一部分
就像是被树皮夹住的蓟
Bio Sketch
Claudia Coutu Radmore is the author of fish spine picked clean (2018, Éditions des petits nuages, Montreal, Canada), and Your Hands Discover Me/ Tes mains me découvrent (2010, Éditions du tanka francophone, Montreal). She is the President of Haiku Canada, and has been proofreading, and selecting tanka, for Gusts.
Claudia's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase/line by poetic phrase/line, to an unexpected yet thematically significant and visually and emotionally powerful ending that reveals the theme of possessive love. And the negative symbolism of thistles (with their rough exteriors, often considered as weeds) adds visual poignancy and psychological depth to the tanka.
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a comparative reading of the following tanka:
in this world
love has no color --
yet how deeply
my body
is stained by yours
TSA 20th Anniversary Taiga Showcase, 2020
Izumi Shikibu