English Original
I wash my hair
and put on fresh clothes
repeating to myself,
you change yourself
you change the world
Gusts, 35, Spring/Summer 2022
Naomi Beth Wakan
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
我清洗頭髮
並換上新衣服
反覆地告訴自己，
你改變了自己
你就改變了世界
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
我清洗头发
并换上新衣服
反覆地告诉自己，
你改变了自己
你就改变了世界
Bio Sketch
Naomi Beth Wakan is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Nanaimo (2014–16) and the Federation of British Columbia Writer’s Inaugural Honorary Ambassador. She has published over fifty books. Her most recent book of essays, On the Arts, came out in 2020 (Shanti Arts). Her trilogy, The Way of Tanka, The Way of Haiku, and Poetry That Heals was published by Shanti Arts in 2019. Wakan is a member of The League of Canadian Poets, Haiku Canada, and Tanka Canada. She lives on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, with her husband, the sculptor Elias Wakan.
Naomi's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku)/line by poetic phrase (ku)/line, to a thematically significant and emotionally powerful ending that reveals this timely and sociopolitically urgent theme about "CHANGE."
ReplyDeleteAnd along with "repeating" to myself in L3, the use of syntactic parallelism adds emotional weight to, and enhances the thematic significance of the tanka.
This heartfelt tanka reminds me of the following two remarks on change:
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
-- Rumi
If you want to change the world, first change yourself, then tell others how you did it. Never demand that people change. Inspire them to change using your own change as an example instead.
― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing: The Best of Year One