English Original
turning
my rusty house key
in the lock
I attempt to smooth over
last night’s quarrel
Blithe Spirit, 29:2, 2019
Hazel Hall
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
轉動
插在鎖中
生鏽的房子鑰匙
我試圖平息
昨晚的爭吵
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
转动
插在锁中
生锈的房子钥匙
我试图平息
昨晚的争吵
Bio Sketch
Hazel Hall is a widely published Australian poet and musicologist. Her most recent collections are Step by Step (Picaro Poets 2019), Moonlight Over the Siding (Interactive Press 2019), Severed Web (Picaro Poets 2020) and a verse drama Please Add Your Signature and Date it Here (Litoria Press, 2021).
Hazel's heartfelt tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku) / line by poetic phrase (ku) / line, to an unexpected yet thematically significant and emotionally relatable ending that reveals the theme of marital relationship. The visually evocative and symbolically rich image of the "rusty" "house key" [stuck] in the lock could be read as a simile for "last night's quarrel." And two actions, "turning" and "to sooth over," function as remedial measures.
ReplyDeleteThis tanka reminds me of Hazel's another tanka about marriage:
such a din
as children bicker
on the swings
these ups and downs
that make a marriage
Kokako, 26, 2017
and of the opening sentence of Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina:"
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.