English Original
in the stubble
a ball of blue wool
unwinds in the wind
An Invisible Accordion, 1995
Winona Baker
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
在茬地裡
一團藍色的羊毛
在風中舒展開來
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
在茬地里
一团蓝色的羊毛
在风中舒展开来
Bio Sketch
Winona Baker was born in March 18, 1924 and moved to British Columbia, Canada in 1930. Living in Nanaimo, she raised four children with her husban. A haiku specialist, she received the top global prize in the 1989 World Haiku Contest in honour of Matsuo Basho’s 300th anniversary. She published Moss-Hung Trees. The title came from her prize-winning haiku. Her work had been translated into Japanese, French, Greek, Croatian, Romanian, and Yugoslavian. She passed away in Nanaimo on October 23, 2020.
Enhanced by the cinematic zoom-in technique, this well-crafted one-phrase haiku is concise and evocative, and its internal contrast between the "stubble/L1," a harvested field, and a ball of blue wool/L2, adds a surprising texture and color comparison.
ReplyDeleteAnd L3, "unwinds in the wind," ties the haiku all together with a sense of movement and the transitory nature of the moment.The flow and rhythm are smooth, too, especially with the soft consonants and the way the haiku builds visually.