Contents:
New:
James W. Hackett: "Haiku" and "Haiku Poetry"
H.F. Noyes: The Vanishing Act in Haiku
D. Anakiev: Unknown Mind in Haiku
John Martone: The Way of Poetry
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David G Lanoue: Not Your Ordinary Saint
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Margaret Chula: Poetry and Harmony in a Bowl of Tea
Mohammed Fakhruddin: Land and Sea...
Richard Powell: Still in the Stream
Lee Gurga: Toward an Aestetic...
Bruce Ross: Sincerity and the Future of Haiku
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Aleksandar Ševo: Our Daily Haiku
Dragan J. Ristić: Haiku: East and West
Jim Kacian: Speech on Haiku in the Balkans
H. F. Noyes: Silence and Outreach in Haiku
H. F. Noyes: A Favourite Haiku
Susumu Takiguchi: Can the Spirit of Haiku be Translated?
Saša Važić: Roads and Side-Roads
Jim Kacian: What Do Editors Really Want?
Dimitar Anakiev (Slovenia) and Richard Gilbert (Japan)
YAKUSHIMA DECLARATION
Our basis for an international haiku genre
- The genre of international haiku is about crossing cultural borders.
- Friendship must be considered the foundation stone of international haiku.
- The genre of international haiku has the qualities of soto (‘outside’).
- Free form (organic form) is more essential for international haiku than any closed or specific form.
- The Japanese poets of soto (jiyuritsu “free-rhythm”poets) are pioneers of the international haiku genre.
- Poets and translators are the two legs upon which the genre of international haiku stands.
- In the genre of international haiku, personal mythology may replace the role of collective stereotypes.
Dimitar Anakiev
September 2007, Radovljica-Kumamoto-Yakushima
INTERNATIONAL HAIKU: CORE TRANSLATION
Centerpoint, and Resonance
its process may function at the core of international haiku. “Core” here implies a metaphorical centerpoint: as a stone thrown into a pond. Its furthest ripples reach the shores of international readers. At the center, likened to the stone itself, is the poem at the center of the translation process, which and rises and falls through the roots and depths of languages to become for a time languageless. All poetic experience itself evidently is such, in that reader experience (consciousness) itself lies at the heart of poetry. This type of reader/translation experience, of languages meeting contextual, cognitive and cultural being, will be familiar to those engaging in poetry translation (with its unique plural: languages), and is an indication of at least a beginning, arising in the first ring of the stone’s resonance—the translation group.
Generally speaking, haiku translation requires at least two translator-poets (one in the source and the target language), each successful in their native tongues, at least one person possessing bilingual ability, providing a path of continual communication and dialogue. While it is possible for a single translator to succeed, it is rare that any one individual has the expertise and cultural knowledge in both source and target languages. Co-translation has many advantages and has become a de facto standard for informed translation. Logistically, projects of book will length typically require 100’s of hours of work, so larger numbers of co-translators may become necessary.
Flowing Outward — Supporting Inward
Beyond the first ring of the core-translation group are succeeding rings of editing, followed by the publication process, each ring of resonance flowing outward from the translation project. Generally, the main aim of each successive ring is to support the preceding inner rings (rather than the other way around).
In terms of support, in the main, translation seems to have been viewed as but a link in a linear chain leading to publication, rather than as a central or core element. A necessary steppingstone only. Regarding international haiku, “translation as centerpoint” is a conceptual and psychological move which places the translation effort closest to the center—with the poems (and poets) themselves at the very center.
Collaborative Translation: Experiential Specifics
Below are described a few necessities involved in creating international/cross-cultural haiku book projects divined from previous successful translation projects of book length, and from discussions with several translators who have published major haiku works with a bilingual format.
1) The group needs a leader, who has final say and is able to organize, direct and interpret the project goals to all concerned.
2) There needs to be adequate funding (whatever project costs exist should be considered upfront, as cost usually relates directly to the final form of the project).
3) The scope, audience, design, and intention of the project all need to be clearly defined. (For instance, Internet/multimedia publication involves technologies, audiences and challenges that are quite different from print media.)
4) The translation goals (e.g. style, language issues, process) need to be clearly defined.
5) It is best not to set publication deadlines until the translation project is succeeding on a steady schedule. This issue has been the ruin of potentially good translation work. Alternatively, a date which is comfortable to the group can be planned with the understanding that it may not be met (the project may need to be reduced in scope to fit a publication deadline).
6) Organization can be refined to stages of completion (project phases).
7) Co-translators should be aware of a general weekly/monthly commitment of time, and the group in an ongoing, steady real-world schedule.
8) It is always best if the co-translators can meet face-to-face as much as possible. It is difficult to get good translations if the group never physically meets together, or is otherwise unable to have freewheeling discussions—this social aspect is often what makes translation both enjoyable and edifying.
9) Objective reading: All final draft translations should be submitted to an objective editor, skilled in the target genre, for comment. Final say on the translation project is however up to the director, not the editor, or publisher (though the editor/publisher may decide not to publish, etc.). Publication involves all the normal processes — what is emphasized here is the point that translation remains the core aspect, and publication, though likewise important, is secondary to the translation team's concepts and goals, ethics and such. In any case, a thorough and expert translation project should result in high quality work, so conflict is not the norm. There may however be issues of audience, markets, translation style and target language style — and there may be cross-cultural issues which are sensitive to all concerned. This is why an objective reader/editor/publisher is important, and likewise a project director. If publication deadlines overwhelm project goals, the resulting work may be lacking.
The overall goal in the specifics mentioned above is to produce the highest quality work: texts that will stand the test of time, by being of value to both poets and academics (especially budding academics, e.g., international MA students). None of this seems possible without haiku achieving poetic power in their target language(s). This issue is complex, as there are numerous considerations beyond the poem itself. While a specific translation of a specific poem may obtain only modest success, contextual commentaries when provided (cultural, historical, biographical, anthropological, literary, etc.) may inspire imagination, curiosity and creativity on the part of the reader.
From the poem itself arise issues of language, culture and context, so poetic translation is rarely a simple matter. This inherent complexity is also a joy (the poet Paul Muldoon comments, “I translate mostly to be able to understand a poem, translation being the closest form of reading we have”). As translation team‑members mention,: the experience of co-translation often provides unique avenues to the heart of poems and the nature of language itself as a vehicle of expression.
Richard Gilbert
September 2007, Kumamoto-Yakushima
Reference
Paul Muldoon. The Minnesota Daily (29 November 2007 interview), University of Minnesota.
JAPANESE GARDEN
51 haiku by Dimitar Anakiev (September, 2007)
in the pure land Japanese garden grasshoppers
following a grasshopper
by the monument to Soseki
over a wet stone
pissing in the bamboo forest I become bamboo
on Mount Kimpo
rain-wet
from the tatami
the night too short
before dawn
mosquito and me
to Alma Anakiev
ferry to Yakushimacoming to the island
appears
finally a dragon-fly lands on the pine
in the Japanese garden
smoking
stopping for a while
a Japanese cat
enjoying every bite
drinking sake all night
on the day i spoke
over the edge of a roof
shadows from a neon light
Keiko –
stepping in the ant's path
As a flying-fish
Kagoshima –
a big wave of the ocean
listening to the ocean
above Japanese roofs
to Ito Yuki
Hoshinaga-Ito,
to Jim Kacian
in the foam of broken Pacific wavesa hundred times konichiwa
a swarm of dragon-flies
resisting the big waves
to Richard Gilbert
a garbage manfrom a pole
through the tunnel
coming back
to Judy and Masa
coming backa rainbow
to Al Gore
at the railroad crossingShimabara still in haze
facing the limits of life
to Izumi and Jeff
breathingat Minamiaso
Fukuoka –
visiting Japan
the first sun –
on the sunny side of the Alps
by sunrise