English Original
spring wind --
I too
am dust
First Prize, International Haiku, Yomiuri Shimbun, 1998
Patricia Donegan
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
春 風 --
我 也 是
灰 塵
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
春 风 --
我 也 是
灰 尘
Bio Sketch
Patricia Donegan (1945 -- 2023) led a life of creative exploration, meditation, writing, translating and teaching haiku, and teaching haiku. Three of her most famous books of haiku Love Haiku: Japanese Poems of Yearning, Passion & Remembrance (co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi), Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart, and Chiyo-ni Woman Haiku Master (co-translated with Yoshie Ishibashi). In 2017 she was named the honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives.
In Donegan (Ex. 6) we have a haiku of 6 total syllables. De Gruttola"s haiku (Ex. 16) contains 12 syllables, twice as many as Donegan. Which takes longer to read in a typical reading by the same individual? We can see that Donegan, through word-spacing and selection, choice of line breaks, and punctuation, has created qualities which suggest rhythmic lengthening. Thus, total syllable counts cannot be considered apart from their intimate relation with rhythm and phrasal cadence. Donegan"s haiku is a good example of the creative possibilities of free-verse English poetry, and it is this tradition that most adequately defines the basis of English haiku, in terms of rhythmic and verse-line variation....excerpted from "From 5-7-5 to 8-8-8 Haiku Metrics and Issues of Emulation -- New Paradigms for Japanese and English Haiku Form," written by Richard Gilbert and Judy Yoneoka, and accessed at https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/1799
ReplyDelete