Monday, December 31, 2012

Reflection, Reflection

How was your 2012? Mine was quite good for me as a writer. My Japanese short poetry was doing much better than I had expected. I even had enough published poems--haiku, haibun, tanka--altogether seventy-seven of them (dated from June, 2011 to October, 2012)--to be compiled into a Christmas gift book for friends. Something that I had never thought about at the beginning of this year.

As I am feeling stronger, in spite of the fact that I still don't feel one hundred percent back, I can plan ahead as I normally did in the past before my hospitalization. For two years, 2010-2012, I simply did whatever I felt up to doing when it came to writing. Now I can at least have a vision for my writing career.

Looking back, I am grateful that some editors are willing to work with me on my work to make my poems better; meanwhile, I have learned some things to improve my own writing. Help from editors is as important as the support from people who like my writing. When I come across such editors, I count my blessings.

Interestingly, my first published haibun Gifts in A Hundred Gourds (December, 2011) was about my mother to whom I am tremendously indebted. And my first published tanka also in A Hundred Gourds (December, 2011) was about my first day in America. It is as follows:

the first day
in my sponsor's backyard
I sought a four-leaf clover
but instead
I picked the dandlelion

It's been over two decades, I still remember that morning!