Dante

Takaha Shugyo haiku and tanka translations

Takaha Shugyo (1930-) is a Japanese poet. He was born in Japan's mountainous Yamagata Prefecture and began writing haiku at age fifteen. He studied with the renowned Yamaguchi Seishi and Akimoto Fujio, won the Young Poet's Award in 1965, then went on to found the haiku magazine KARI in 1978.

Wild geese pass
leaving the emptiness of heaven
revealed
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.

Untitled

Little sparks may ignite great Infernos.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
am I or are the others crazy?
—Albert Einstein, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Medusa
by Michael R. Burch

Friends, beware
of her iniquitous hair—
long, ravenblack & melancholy.