Two Tanka by Ono no Komachi
On 7 May, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments
- Videopoems
A video by Portuguese artist Bruno Gaspar illustrating a tanka by Ono no Komachi. Here’s an English version:
It’s too cold to sleep
in this lodging on the way
to Iwanoue.
Oh monk, if it’s all the same to you,
could I borrow your robes?
And here’s a short film by Bryan Lacey. The interplay between the classical Japanese poem and modern folk/country song certainly creates an interesting mood, and one worlds away from the original court milieu.
Multiple English versions of the tanka in this video — Ono no Komachi’s most famous poem — are collected here.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
