English Original
heat shimmer
the corrugated shadow
of a roofer
Honorable Mention, 2012 Haiku Pen Contest
André Surridge
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
熱浪散發微光
一名維修屋頂工人
的波紋狀陰影
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
热浪散发微光
一名维修屋顶工人
的波纹状阴影
Bio Sketch
André Surridge was an award-winning playwright and poet who immigrated to New Zealand from Yorkshire, England in 1972. He was President of the Playwrights Association of New Zealand from 1998-2000. Widely published, some of his awards included: 1995 Minolta Playwriting Award, 2007 Elizabeth Searle Lamb Award, 2008 Tanka Splendor Award, and 2010 Jane Reichhold International prize. And his first collection of haiku ans senryu, one hundred petals, was critically acclaimed in 2019.
L1 sets the scene and sensory atmosphere while the concluding phrase of L3, "a roofer," grounds this evocative image of L2, “the corrugated shadow” (with a clever double meaning: "both the shape of the roof ,corrugated metal, and the visual distortion of the shadow through the shimmer), in a human presence.
ReplyDeleteThis labor imagery of Ls 2&3 in the shimmering heat, L1, sparks the reader's emotions and reflection