English Original
languidly
peony petals fall
into my heart’s
empty space
after making love
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2010
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
做愛後
舒懶地一片片
牡丹花瓣
飄落並進入
我的心空白之處
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
做爱后
舒懒地一片片
牡丹花瓣
飘落并进入
我的心空白之处
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.
L1 sets the tone and mood while unexpected yet visually and emotionally effective L5, enhanced by symbolically rich L2, successfully conveys the speaker's (most likely female) sense of sexuality (not her reflection on sexual relationships because of L1).
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be be interesting to do a comparative reading of two of my "making love" tanka:
the silence
after making love
cigarette smoke
slowly drifts
to the motel ceiling
Neon Graffiti: Tanka of Urban Life, 2016
my dog nudges me
down the leafy path
where you and I
used to take long walks
after making love
NeverEnding Story, April 10, 2017