English Original
something
inside me is weeping
white lilies keep
dropping yellow pollen
on the night table
Co-Winner, Tanka Splendor 2006
Kozue Uzawa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
一陣低聲哭泣
來自我的內心深處
在床頭櫃上
白色百合花不停地
掉落黃色花粉
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
一阵低声哭泣
来自我的内心深处
在床头柜上
白色百合花不停地
掉落黄色花粉
Bio Sketch
Kozue Uzawa is a retired university professor. She works as editor of the English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia University.
Brief L1, "something," delivers a quiet announcement. It triggers a wave of emotion that spills forward, mimicking the actual fall of the pollen. By Ls 4&5, the white lilies dropping yellow pollen create a vivid visual contrast and a sense of inevitability—something beautiful shedding, staining, and leaving its mark.
ReplyDeleteBy letting the internal grief and external scene interact without explicit connection, the tanka ensures that what remains unsaid is just as powerful as what is spoken.