English Original
on her skin he writes
invisible love letters
each word
a little warmer
than the next
Gusts, 22, 2015
Claudia Coutu Radmore
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在她的皮膚表面
他寫下看不見的情書
每一個字
比接下來的一個字
更加暖和一點
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在她的皮肤表面
他写下看不见的情书
每一个字
比接下来的一个字
更加暖和一点
Bio Sketch
Claudia Coutu Radmore writes lyric and Japanese form poetry. She publishes Canadian poets through catkin press and is the president of Haiku Canada. Two books are Your Hands Discover Me/ Tes mains me découvrent (2010, Éditions du tanka francophone, Montreal) and fish spine picked clean (2018, Éditions des petits nuages, Ottawa).
Claudia's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku)/ line by poetic phrase (ku)/ line, to a thematically significant and visually and emotionally powerful ending that reveals the theme of the relationship between sexuality/sex and artistic/writing power. The imagery of this sensual and intimate tanka reminds me of that of the theatrical release poster of "The Pillow Book," a 1996 erotic drama film dealing with female sexuality and "idealized" Chinese and Japanese cultural themes, centering on body painting and writing,
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a comparative reading of my tanka below:
I traced the curves
of her womanhood
with my fingers ....
that night and nights after
blurring together
Cattails, May 2016