NeverEnding Story, January 2015

Translated into Chinese by Chen-ou Liu:

bats dart

in and out of light

skywriting

we no longer speak

each other's language


A Hundred Gourds, 3:2, March 2014

Chen-Ou's comments:

Unlike a classic waka whose jo ("prefatory image") is logically metaphoric or at least resonates closely with the emotional point of the tanka, the prefatory image (depicted in Ls 1-3) of Debbie's tanka forms a thematically and emotionally dialectical relationship with the main statement (Ls 4&5) of the poem, which sparks the reader's reflection on human relationships.

And the issue of language, written (as implied in L3) or spoken (as indicated in L5), takes on metaphoric significance.