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Clifton, In my mind, the birds were crying over the blossoms that perished during the storm the night before. Any suggestions on how I can bring this out?
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Clifton, I've added quotation marks to the last two lines. Will this help? Please let me know.
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Hi BobChoi,
In a few words, you've captured the essence of a complete story. If you expand this to a longer narrative, you could fill a chapter with visuals, etc. It's the start of a new day, full of hope but then, tragedy, the birds lamenting the loss of their treasured blossoms. Damn storm! It killed them all during the night while you and the songbirds were sleeping. Couldn't do much about it.
It has the full essence of who, what, when, where and how for a full narration in the minimalist way.
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Grampa Pogi, I take it that you like the way I keep it minimal. That's the beauty of classical Chinese poetry... most of them have only 2 or 4 lines, each line has either 5 or 7 characters (syllables), and with that the ancient Chinese poets described a full spectrum of scenes and emotions. I'm glad you like it. The only trouble is that school children are required to recite these Chinese poems, and there are literally hundreds of them.
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Let me try a bit.
Oversleeping in spring I missed the dawn
Everywhere birds' cheery songs
Wind and rain filled the night
How many blossoms have fallen after the storm?
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Nice, Jasmine. You know the original Chinese poem and have translated it perfectly! Now see how you would fit your version into a 5-syllable, rhyming version... that's the fun part!
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Bob, I have to admit that I am useless in syllables, as Chinese words are made up with two or even just 1 syllable while English is completely different. I should learn more from you about how to bridge two languages.
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