Hi Kasper and thanks.
This will get horribly complicated but: my understanding is that Japanese
writers of 'haiku' ('hokku' to Basho) counted 'onji' which are not identical
to English syllables, I believe 'mora' is the technical word. So a 'haiku'
would consist of 17 visual signs, 'onji', in a 5-7-5 pattern which were not
necessarily identical to 17 syllables in the same pattern. The more
sophisticated writers, like Basho, would exploit this as a kind of
counterpoint, recall too that the productions of professionals existed as
commodities in a visual art objects market. This is all of course a gross
simplification ( I don't read Japanese) of things that are even more
entangled, or subtle, profound, or confusing, depending on one's point of
view.
What little of the provenance of the original too suggests that it may have
had homoerotic connotations as it was addressed to a favourite pupil, Tojo,
even though 'pistil' is the female sex -organ ( definitely no to 'petal'
by the way!) and, whatever else it is about the imagery is certainly meant
to suggest the female sex organs after intercourse ( my head starts to
spin when I even consider what might have been happening, linguistically,
in 17th century Japanese homosexual argot)
The rest is definitely 'post-' but 'post-photograph' (snap) or 'post-image'
or 'post-recorded' (I hope delivered) rather than 'post-modern'. I think.
Unless one thinks of it as being sent by e-mail., in which case the post is
certainly modern.
Yeah, I'm still thinking about this: it's post-imagist.
On 19/03/2008, kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> haiku are close to my heart, & I'm very fond of your rewrite David.
> the unusual length of the original japanese (I wasn't aware that Basho
> had moved out of structure so) is well translated into english -- the
> length of the second line manages to bring the moment to the brink of
> confusion between flower & bee: is it the bee, or the peony that's
> emerging from 'depths'? the slowness also suggests the near-static
> pace of a flower's bloom.
> the word that mars the magic mildly is 'pistil', which strikes me as
> too much of a botanist's term. I think 'petals' would work equally
> well, or better; although maybe the technicality of the term is
> intended to link the bee & the peony biologically, thus reinforcing
> the significance of the emerging.
>
> good job there, in any case.
>
> the postmodern rest is lost on me.
>
>
> KS
>
>
> On 19/03/2008, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Absolutely Basho
> >
> > how slow it lets
> > a bee emerge from its pistils' depths ~
> > the peony
> >
> > [being theft being
> > GOTCHA snap-(ped in the act):
> > translated summer]
> >
> > a retina retainer
> > perching on the language:
> > a snatch at memory,
> >
> > a not now stop
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > David Bircumshaw
> > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> >
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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