English Original
in her letter
where tears had dried
the words were blurred --
that was how we always
understood each other
Tanka of Michael McClintock, Pinterest, 2011
Michael McClintock
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在她的信中
淚水已乾的地方
文字變得模糊 --
我們總是這樣
互相理解對方
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在她的信中
泪水已干的地方
文字变得模糊 --
我们总是这样
互相理解对方
Bio Sketch
Michael McClintock's lifework in haiku, tanka, and related literature spans over four decades. His many contributions to the field include six years as president of the Tanka Society of America (2004-2010) and contributing editor, essayist, and poet for dozens of journals, anthologies, landmark collections and critical studies. McClintock now lives in Clovis, California, where he works as an independent scholar, consultant for public libraries, and poet. Meals at Midnight [tanka], Sketches from the San Joaquin [haiku] and Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka, are some of his recent titles.
This relationship tanka is about "tacit understanding" (as indicated in Ls 4&5 ), "a deep comprehension or knowledge of something that is not explicitly expressed or communicated (as implied from L2 &3)," about one's most difficult part of life/suffering (as implied from L2).
ReplyDeleteAnd it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of McClintock's another relationship tanka about strangers:
in a city
drifting among
strangers
sometimes I want
nothing more
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, II, 2009