English Original
staying home
days in days out
my mind
trapped inside
a blue labyrinth
red lights, 17:1, 2021
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
呆在家裡
日復一日
我的心思
受困在藍色迷宮
的
裡面Chinese Translation (Simplified)
呆在家里
日复一日
我的心思
受困在蓝色迷宫
的里面
Bio Sketch
Kozue Uzawa is a retired university professor. She works as editor of the English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia University.
Enhanced by the use of repetition, Kozue's tanka builds, line by line, to a visually and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of a "trapped mind,", which reminds me of the life during the Covid lockdown.
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