English Original
the old woman
with a walking stick
bent over
her daughter's grave
like a question mark
Ash Moon Anthology, 2008
André Surridge
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
使用拐杖
的一位老婦人
彎腰越過
她女兒的墳墓
看起來像一個問號
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
使用拐杖
的一位老妇人
弯腰越过
她女儿的坟墓
看起来像一个问号
Bio Sketch
André Surridge was an award-winning playwright and poet who immigrated to New Zealand from Yorkshire, England in 1972. He was President of the Playwrights Association of New Zealand from 1998-2000. Widely published, some of his awards included: 1995 Minolta Playwriting Award, 2007 Elizabeth Searle Lamb Award, 2008 Tanka Splendor Award, and 2010 Jane Reichhold International prize. And his first collection of haiku ans senryu, one hundred petals, was critically acclaimed in 2019.
Ls 1-3 tell readers the subject of the tanka, an old woman like many we have seen in our daily life, but L4 makes a sudden shift of theme and mood, turning a picture of old age into a "portrait of grief." And through the simile in L5, the tanka "reverberates with the anguish of "Why?", effectively capturing one of the saddest moments in one's life with the breathtaking beauty of words (pp.17-8, Take Five:Best Contemporary Tanka, II, 2009)
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