English Original
a drizzly day,
with yellow leaves pasted
to wet black pavement --
returning the library books
she left behind
tangerine anthology, 2002
Larry Kimmel
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
下著毛毛雨的一天,
發黃的樹葉粘貼
在潮濕黑色的路面 --
歸還她所留下
的圖書館書籍
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
下着毛毛雨的一天,
发黄的树叶粘贴
在潮湿黑色的路面 --
归还她所留下
的图书馆书籍
Bio Sketch
Larry Kimmel lives quietly in the hills of western Massachusetts. His most recent books are shards and dust (cherita), outer edges (tanka) and thunder and apple blossoms (haiku).
Technically speaking, this is a good example of what American poet Archibald MacLeish calls "coupled images:" One image is established by words which make it sensuous and vivid to the the eyes or ears or touch-to any of the senses. Another image is put beside it. And "a meaning appears which is neither the meaning of one image nor the meaning of the other nor even the sum of both but a consequence of both -- a consequence of both in their conjunction, in their relation to each other" (Krishna Rayan, Suggestion and Statement in Poetry, p.69). It is in the "space between'" that the poem grows.
ReplyDeleteAnd in terms of theme, emotions, and mood, the contrasts between the two parts of this relationship tanka written in an understated tone are effective.