English Original
dandelions
before the reasons why
all blow away
This World, 2013
Michele Root-Bernstein
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
蒲公英
在解釋原因之前
一切都被吹走
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
蒲公英
在解释原因之前
一切都被吹走
Bio Sketch
Michele Root-Bernstein appears in A New Resonance 6; the 2016 chapbook, Scent of the Past…Imperfect; Haiku 2014; Haiku 2016; and on three rocks in Ohio. She is co-author with Francine Banwarth of The Haiku Life, What We Learned as Editors of Frogpond and facilitator of a Michigan haiku study group.
In this copy exercise, I begin by immersing myself in a poem by the twelfth-century Japanese poet Saigyo (as translated by LaFleur56):
ReplyDeleteAll so vague:
In autumn the reasons why
All fall away
And there’s just this
Inexplicable sadness.
Saigyo’s poem “works” by conflating leaves with human purposes, season with mood. His depressed response to the fall of leaves and approach of winter is a familiar one, but the basic metaphor implies that leaves in bud or in full flower may signal other moods. So I opt to displace the focus of attention from one part of the metaphor to another. In essence, I ask myself what is the poetic experience just before the leaves and the sadness fall? Can I transpose that moment just before impending loss to another season? Moreover, can I assert a different meaning to the metaphor, one that ties loss to eventual renewal? I try my hand with the following:
dandelions
before the reasons why
all blow away 57
As a consequence of my change in seasonal attention, I accomplish a shift in mood and insight—and, I believe, add something of my own to the copy of craft process.
--excerpted from To the Lighthouse: "Copying to Create: The Role of Imitation and Emulation in Developing Haiku Craft" by Michele Root-Bernstein, accessed at https://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2019/12/to-lighthouse-copying-to-create-role-of.html