Weaver Birds
by Amelia Fielden and Saeko Ogi

"Two friends living in Australia, Amelia Fielden (winner of the 2007 Donald Keene Award for Translation of Japanese Literature), and Saeko Ogi (long time teacher of Japanese and co-translator for three of Amelia's books), decided to write bilingual series of responsive tanka through the twelve months of 2009 . . . .The bond between these two poets allows each to enter the other's world. When one write a poem, the other interprets it, forming a symbiotic link, a melding of thoughts, and then responds in her own language. The results are oftentimes magical; yet each response is not merely an echo of the preceding tanka, for Amelia and Saeko have quite distinct poetic voices." From the preface by Robert D. Wilson   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
                                                                             Some paired verses in English from Weaver Birds:

                                                                             Pair 1

       on New Year's Day
       low in the Western sky
       a fingernail moon---
       so little light is cast
       by irresponsible prophets
                  
          ~Saeko

       seldom seeking
       the moon and the stars,
       I'm content
       in morning's sunlight
       ever an optimist

           ~Amelia
 
 

         
 
      Pair 2

      a magpie couple
      searching for food
      in autumn
      they call to each other
      in such a touching way

        ~Saeko

      I hear my daughter
      comforting her daughter,
      and I'm safe again
      in the arms of my mother
      sixty years ago

         ~Amelia

Amelia Fielden is an Australian poet and translator of Japanese Literature. She has published six collections of original tanka poetry in English and fifteen books of translated Japanese tanka. For several of those books Saeko Ogi has been Amelia's co-translator.
 

Saeko Ogi was born in Tokyo in 1931. She graduated from Tokyo Woman's Christian University. In 1972, she came to Australia and has devoted herself to Japanese language teaching for twenty-five years. She is a member of Araragi-ha and Nara Neiraku Tankakai.

To order Weaver Birds, contact Amelia at anafielden@hotmail.com ; price US$ 20 pp.
 

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