Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Butterfly Dream: Ex-Spouse Day Haiku by Natalia Kuznetsova

English Original

Ex-Spouse Day 
a couple of blackbirds
at the courthouse

Asahi Haikuist Network, April 20, 2018

Natalia Kuznetsova


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

前任配偶日
在法院大樓前面
的幾隻黑鳥

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

前任配偶日
在法院大楼前面
的几只黑鸟


Bio Sketch

Living in Moscow, Russia, Natalia Kuznetsova is an assistant professor of English and freelance interpreter. Before discovering the haiku world, she wrote poetry in Russian. She started writing tanka and mostly haiku in English several years ago, and participated in numerous competitions worldwide and won some awards. She now contributes regularly to World Haiku Review, Mainichi DailyAsahi Haikuist NetworkShiki Kukai and other traditional and on-line publications. She was included on the list of "European Top 100 Most Creative Haiku Authors" from 2010 to 2013.

2 comments:

  1. L1 sets the theme and tone while the visually poignant and symbolically rich image of Ls 2&3 (blackbirds at the courthouse where divorce battles heated up, and then were won or lost) forms a counterpoint, visual and emotional, against the theme of reconciling with one's ex.

    FYI: "Each year on April 14th, National Ex-Spouse Day encourages those who have dissolved a marriage to forgive their former spouse and move beyond any anger or bitterness that may remain. "

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    Replies
    1. It might be interesting to read a divorce haiku sequence, titled "Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," where my haiku are combined with Natalia's as the concluding one.

      winter sky
      heavy with rain clouds
      divorce court

      Haiku Canada Review, 11:2, 2017

      the click
      of her red high heels ...
      divorce court

      Haiku Canada Review, 10:2, 2016

      divorce court ...
      the little boy stares
      at the ceiling fan

      Ardea, 1, Summer 2011

      leaving the divorce court ...
      our shadows touch

      after the cyclone, New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology, 2017

      Ex-Spouse Day
      a couple of blackbirds
      at the courthouse

      Asahi Haikuist Network, April 20, 2018

      Natalia Kuznetsova


      FYI: At the opening of his novel "Anna Karenina," the Russian novelist Tolstoy writes:

      All Happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

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