English Original
for three dawns
the faint call of tundra swans
through a drifting mist --
once more I replay your
last message on my machine
Scent of Jasmine and Brine, 2007
Linda Jeannette Ward
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
已經三個黎明
苔原天鵝微弱的呼叫聲
穿過飄浮的薄霧 --
我再次播放答錄機上
你的最後一條留言
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
已经三个黎明
苔原天鹅微弱的呼叫声
穿过飘浮的薄雾 --
我再次播放答录机上
你的最后一条留言
Bio Sketch
Linda Jeannette Ward was best known for her tanka poetry, published in journals internationally, and included in two collections: A Frayed Red Thread (Clinging Vine Press, 2000) and Scent of Jasmine and Brine (Inkling Press, 2007). Her tanka won 2nd and 3rd prizes in the Tanka Society of America's annual competition, as well as four Tanka Splendor Awards. And her collection, a delicate dance of wings, received the Haiku Society of America's 2003 Merit Book Award for Best Book of Haibun.
... In this tanka Jeanette presents two sounds that are both opposed and linked. Opposed in that one sound is alive and animated (the tundra swans call), and the other is mechanised (a voice recording on an answering machine). Yet at the same time these sounds are linked by their haunting quality, and the inability to see or pin down the instigator of the sound...
ReplyDelete-- excerpted from "To the Lighthouse: Sensing Tanka: Perceiving Life Beyond the Ordinary" by David Terelinck, accessed at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2017/10/to-lighthouse-sensing-tanka-perceiving.html