English Original
the smell
of new mown grass...
something
I believed forgotten
and yet was not
Frameless Sky, 11, 2019
of new mown grass...
something
I believed forgotten
and yet was not
Frameless Sky, 11, 2019
Susan Mary Wade
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
新割過
綠草的氣味 ...
某件事
過去我以為我忘記了
但是並沒有
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
新割过
绿草的气味 ...
某件事
过去我以为我忘记了
但是并没有
Bio Sketch
Susan Mary Wade has been published in International Tanka, Gusts, Ribbons, and many other magazines over the years. Her work has been anthologized, and she has received awards in the 6th, 7th and 8th International Tanka Festival Competition in Japan.
Susan's tanka effectively builds, line by line, to a thematically significant and emotionally powerful ending that reveals the theme of the "Proustian moment," a "sensory experience that triggers a rush of memories often long past, or even seemingly forgotten."
ReplyDeleteHer heartfelt tanka is a fine example of the evocative power (Ls 3-5) of smell (Ls 1&2), terminologically known as “the Proust effect” (FYI: it's due to how close the olfactory processing system is to the memory hub in the brain)
FYI: This seminal passage/the "Proustian moment in Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time", first translated into English as "Remembrance of Things Past," is written in his rich prose, and it starts with the narrator sipping on tea with crumbs from a madeleine cake:
“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.”