Tuesday, April 30, 2013

My Writer's AHA Moment II

Last time I wrote about my writer's AHA moment. I simplified the process quite a bit. In truth, it takes more steps to revise my haiku and tanka. In addition to dissecting the poems into two parts, I look at more things, such as the word choice, the rhythm, the sentence structure, the word order, the connection of the two parts. Because I take these steps, I continue to enjoy the AHA moment. Not long ago, I got five tanka rejected. I dissected them one at a time and examined each poem for all the things I mentioned above and revised them accordingly. Aha, they got accepted by the other journals. The joy of discovery!

Here is a tanka of mine published in red lights, Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2013 with my own Chinese translation:

new citizenship . . .
a day of joy and sadness
wrapping myself
in the outfit of a cowgirl
do I look authentic?

新公民身份 . . .
一個悲喜交集的日子
穿上
一套牛女裝
我看來有真實感嗎?

Here is the link of Jane Reichhold's haiku book in English and Chinese American Haiku in Four Seasons, 1993 by Yilin Press, Nanjing, China.

American Haiku in Four Seasons