A Life in Transition and Translation by Chen-ou Liu
A Life in Transition and Translation by Chen-ou Liu
Honorable Mention, Turtle Light Press Haiku Chapbook Competition, 2014
NeverEnding Story 2014
First published in Canada in 2014 by NeverEnding Story at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/ Copyright Š Chen-ou Liu 2014 All rights reserved. This eBook may be downloaded for the reader’s personal use only. It may not be sold, copied, distributed or disseminated in any other way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Further, no part of this eBook may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Preface Following the Moon to the Maple Land for my first Canada Day, July 1, 2003 Name: Chen-ou Liu (phonic); Country of Birth: R.O.C.; (Cross out R.O.C. and fill in Taiwan) 1 Place of Birth; Date of Birth; Sex; simply more technocratic questions the Immigration Officer needs to pin down my borders. He is always looking for shortcuts, more interested in the roadside signposts than in the landscape that has made me. The line he wants me confined to is an analytically recognizable category: immigrant. My history is meticulously stamped. Now, you're legally a landed immigrant. Take a copy of A Newcomer’s Introduction to Canada. from Lake Ontario I scoop the Taiwan moon distant sirens Contemporary Haibun Online, 10:2, July 2014
Note: "The Republic of China (ROC)” was established in China in 1912. At the end of World War II in 1945, Japan surrendered Taiwan to ROC military forces on behalf of the Allies. Following the Chinese civil war, the Communist Party of China took full control of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The ROC relocated its government to Taiwan, and its jurisdiction became limited to Taiwan and its surrounding islands. In 1971, the PRC assumed China's seat at the United Nations, which the ROC originally occupied. International recognition of the ROC has gradually eroded as most countries switched recognition to the PRC. Only 21 UN member states and the Holy See currently maintain formal diplomatic relations with the ROC, though it has informal ties with most other states via its representative offices." -- excerpted from the Wikipedia entry, “Taiwan,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan
Canada geese under the rainbow a new immigrant
im-mi-grant . . . the way English tastes on my tongue
job hunting... a yellow leaf drifts from branch to branch
first autumn ... tonight's moon not like the one back home
Christmas Eve my dog and I run out of topics
winter rain I fall asleep holding myself
thoughts of home... I rake last year's leaves for compost
Lunar New Year I become a Chinese once again
budding lotus -when did I become who I am
midsummer night I photoshop my immigrant dream
job interview falling leaves with every step
elliptical thoughts of what could have happened ... winter drizzle
job interview just enough snow to bend the maple branch
to leave or to stay... the light and dark of a spring wind
July First fireworks the smell of solitude lingering
maple leaves falling by ones, by twos -the smell of mooncakes
this urge to look back on my life ... a wedge of geese
a fleeting dream in winter moonlight notes of an erhu
my dog and I in a patch of sunlight New Year's morning
budding blossoms‌ a love poem for no one in particular
drifting petals ... a monarch butterfly completes my dream
something old that is always new summer stars
alone walking the house all night -moon festival
blizzard on the way my immigrant past withering
hometown memories... spring water against my legs
Pacific shore . . . I speak to the chestnut moon in my mother tongue
first homecoming... the silence lengthened tree by tree
mother squeezing the side of my belly first hometown visit
from Lake Ontario I scoop the Taiwan moon distant sirens
October snowflakes ... thoughts of home whirling in my mind
winter rain drops my reflection
first sunrise the silver strand in my hair
budding cherry petals ... three blue-eyed teens greet me with middle fingers
last cherry petals drift to the ground I miss myself
offshoring jobs... the last glow of sunset at the horizon
harvest moon rising .... a tremble in the migrant's voice
writing haiku... autumn sunlight breaks through a wall of gray
oh, so, you're a poet the aftertaste of her words
drifting snowflakes... your poem, a bit of this and a bit of that
the porridge on my coffee-stained desk rewriting haiku (for Jack Kerouac)
lunar eclipse can my words map the contour of a void?
shades of winter light I tune in to the silence
Silent Night drifting in from the neighbors -I relearn Chinese
a full moon between mother and me the Pacific
Postface To Liv(e) My Dear: Upon reading your ground-floor comment regarding my decision to emigrate to Canada, “you're a dreamer with your head in the clouds, paying little attention to the reality on the ground,” I laugh… to tears. It reminds me that Ingmar Bergman once commented on Elliot Gould, “It was the impatience of a soul to find out things about reality and himself, and that is one thing that always makes me touched almost to tears, that impatience of the soul.” I miss you, miss the conversations we used to have inside and outside the theater, and miss your favorite actress Liv Ullmann and our dream. autumn twilight a butterfly darts in and out of my shadow It’s true that my immigrant life here is much tougher than I thought. It can easily thrust me into troubling circumstances that threaten to undo my “mastery” over those things that matter most.
Thanks for your advice: “don't let life make your heart hard; sometimes, you need to keep one of your eyes open and the other closed.” You told me that you've long found yourself mesmerized by Pablo Picasso’s painting, “The Head of a Medical Student,” a face in the form of an African mask with one eye open, and the other closed. I can generalize about the provocative poignancy of this painting: most people live their lives with one of their eyes keenly open to the dangers of the world and the uncertainty of the human condition; their other eye is closed so they do not see or feel too many of these things, so they can get on with their lives. fight after fight against loneliness -waning moon I don’t want to drag you into our decade-old debate again. But, is this the kind of life we’re going to pursue after spending years together reading, seeing, and discussing so many artistic works on life and death? Your Ullmann once quoted Bergman as saying, “Perhaps there’s no reality; reality exists only as a longing.” For me, my longing is reality. falling off a dream I become a butterfly Love, Chen-ou Frogpond, 34:3, Fall 2011
Appendix Commentary by the Judge, Penny Harter In this collection we enter the life of being an immigrant, feel the loneliness of being between worlds, and the questions and challenges that arise from that experience. One must learn a new language, a new landscape, and a new culture. The immigrant is at first cast adrift, never really at home, but never really in exile, either. winter rain I fall asleep holding myself We don’t have to be a stranger in a strange land to feel this degree of loneliness, but being one makes it all the more poignant. budding lotus when did I become who I am When any of us have experienced a shift from one land to another, whether chosen or forced upon us, this is a question we find ourselves asking more
than once. I know I have been asking it often since my husband died and I only moved from north to south Jersey. first homecoming . . . the silence lengthened tree by tree And when we try to go home, we are changed, so home is changed. The silence, the trees . . . how do we bridge the gap? And what self are we bringing home again? last cherry petals drift to the ground I miss myself As we are becoming, day by day, our “new” selves, we miss the old, but can’t go back. And that’s the way it is. But we go on! This is a collection that makes us recognize the changes we must make—and, if we are immigrants, the changes are even more profound. -- excerpted from "2014 TLP Haiku Chapbook Contest: Overall Comments"
Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the editors and publishers of the following publications in which these poems first appeared: A Hundred Gourds, Acorn, Ardea, cattails, Chrysanthemum, Frogpond, Haiku Canada Review, Haiku Pix Review, Kokako, Lynx, Lyrical Passion Poetry E-Zine, Modern Haiku, NeverEnding Story, Notes From the Gean, Presence, Shamrock, Simply Haiku, Sketchbook, The Heron's Nest, Tinywords, Turtle Light Press, VerseWrights, Wednesday Haiku. Whispers, and World Haiku Review. For more information about publication credits, please visit Poetry in the Moment, http://chenouliu.blogspot.ca/
A Life in Transition and Translation Honorable Mention, Turtle Light Press Haiku Chapbook Competition, 2014 Biographical Sketch
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Chen-ou Liu was a college teacher and two-time winner of the national Best Book Review Radio Program Award. In 2002, he emigrated to Canada and settled in Ajax, a suburb of Toronto. He is currently Editor and Translator of NeverEnding Story, First English-Chinese Haiku and Tanka Blog, http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, and the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize Winner of the 2011 Haiku Pix Review Chapbook Contest). His tanka and haiku have been honored with 68 awards. Read more of his poems at Poetry in the Moment, http://chenouliu.blogspot.com/
NeverEnding Story 2014