English Original
ghost town
buffalo grass escapes
the cemetery
Randy Brooks
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
鬼城
墓園裡外長滿
水牛草
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
鬼城
墓园里外长满
水牛草
Bio Sketch
Dr. Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University where he teaches courses on haiku and tanka. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include Walking the Fence: Selected Tanka and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku: A Reader Response Approach.
Visually and emotionally poignant image of Ls 2&3 ("no living creatures only dead ones" in the cemetery) plays the role of a synecdoche for L1, "ghost" "town."
ReplyDeleteAnd this emotionally charged action verb, "escapes," (used to describe the cemetery, inside and outside, overgrown with buffalo grass) seems to personify this hardy/low-maintenance/drought-resistant native grass of the central North American prairie, adding psychological depth to the haiku.
And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of the following haiku:
ghost town --
the night comes alive
with mosquitoes
Cattails, September 2015
Carl Seguiban
rusty staples
on the bulletin board
a ghost town
Selected Haiku, Kissing A Ghost: 2021 NZPS Poetry Contest Anthology
Chen-ou Liu