Santoka: Some Further Translations

Last month, I did a post for which Scott Watson allowed me to share some of his thoughts on translation, along with 5 of his excellent renderings of the work of Santoka. In response, in order to prompt to continued thought and, perhaps, even talk on the subject, Charlie Trumbull sent along some translations of the same poems from his ongoing Haiku Database project. I asked him for more info on the project and he sent it, kindly granting permission to reprint the overview here:

The Haiku Database Project

A

while ago I was in the library looking for the text of a certain poem and was grateful for those anthologies that featured a first-line index of the contents. I had the thought that it would be wonderful to have a first-line or subject index of the best English-language haiku. But then, I continued, since haiku are so short, why not a full-text index? And while we’re at it, since we’re effectively talking only about 40 years of English haiku activity, why not a comprehensive, inclusive database?

The Haiku Database in an attempt to do just that: to put into a searchable, sortable, electronic database all important haiku that have appeared in English. I began working on the project in September 1998 and so far (end of June 2010) have captured almost 220,000 haiku. An unscientific guess is that the total number of English haiku published in the journals, anthologies, and individual collections is about twice that number. The Database grows at a rate of more than 20,000 haiku a year.

I began — because it was easy — by copying materials from on-line haiku sites and journals, including Dogwood Blossoms (the first Internet haiku journal), the Shiki Internet Haiku Salon biweekly kukai, Dhugal Lindsay’s Web site (which includes a few issues of Futoh), the wonderful sites constructed by Jane Reichhold, ai li, Elizabeth St Jacques, Randy Brooks, John Hudak, and others. Next, I targeted the major English-language anthologies, and have so far included Cor van den Heuvel’s The Haiku Anthology (all three editions), Bruce Ross’s Haiku Moment, Jim Kacian’s annual Red Moon Anthologies (1996–2008) and the first five volumes in the New Resonance series (1999–2007), the San Francisco, Canadian, Australian, and two New Zealand anthologies, the British Haiku Hundred and Iron Book of Haiku, Zoe Savina’s huge international anthology, and many others.

Journals and individual collections are next. I have finished entering systematically the full runs of a few journals including American Haiku, Haiku West, Haiku Quarterly (Arizona), Woodnotes, Black Bough, South by Southeast, Acorn, Still, and Frogpond, and have begun working on Modern Haiku, Cicada, Dragonfly, Blithe Spirit, and Brussels Sprout. As for Internet sources, the Database includes Reflections, Haiku Light, The Heron’s Nest, Tinywords, Roadrunner, and Simply Haiku as well as much material from the English-language haiku columns in Japanese newspapers such as Mainichi and Asahi.

The Database focuses on haiku in English, but translations into English are also included. The Database now includes the contents of first three volumes of R.H. Blyth’s Haiku, as well as all of his two-volume History of Haiku. All the Peter Pauper haiku books have been extracted, as has the first volume of Toshiharu Oseko’s Bashô’s Haiku and many other translations into English of Japanese haiku. David Lanoue’s astonishing online database of Issa’s work was added at the end of 2007. Important individual collections are being captured as well, including Jane Reichhold’s massive Dictionary of Haiku (both the print and on-line editions; more than 4,800 haiku), Richard Wright’s Haiku: This Other World, and Jack Kerouac’s Book of Haikus.

Criteria for inclusion of a haiku are basically that it should have appeared in print (or in an online journal) in English. A few haiku in other languages are included, some translated, some not; these may form the core of a non-English haiku database some time in the future. Verses included as part of haiga or haibun are included if, in our opinion, they can stand alone as independent haiku. Except for the hokku, verses of renku are generally not included, nor generally are rengay, tanka, cinquains, and the like. In the case of concrete poems and short verses of haiku length, we generally try to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Children’s haiku are included, but gathering them is a low priority.

Data collected for each haiku include the text (including as much of the formatting as possible), the author, publication history, date of composition (or, more commonly, date of first publication), and notes. For haiku translated from languages other than English, notably Japanese, the original text (in the original orthography and in a romanized version, if applicable), the name of the translator, and date of translation are also included. These data permit searches on specific kigo and comparisons of various translations of a haiku by, say, Bashô, even when the English texts are very different. Other fields in the database assist in sorting by season, season words, attributes (e.g., rhyme), etc.

The purpose of The Haiku Database is to make it easier for serious students to locate and study haiku — i.e., it is a finding tool. So far the database has proved useful to poets wishing to check the originality of their own work and in a few cases has helped identify cases of plagiarism in haiku contests. It has been useful for authors writing about haiku, preparing newspaper columns or journal articles, and compiling anthologies to have at hand large selection of examples, together with original publication information.

Clearly, any sort of commercial use or making the database freely available—e.g., on the Web—is out of the question, and I will not publish any raw search data. I would, however, like to make the existence of this resource known and make the search capability available to others in the haiku community. Please let me know if you are looking for a specific haiku or want to know what use has been made of, for example, “pampas grass” or “Christmas” in haiku. Within reason, I’ll be happy to run a search for you.

The poems that follow are in the order of the original post as translated by Scott Watson. I haven't reproduced Scott's renderings again as it isn't a question, in my mind (nor, I believe, Charlie's either), which one is better or worse etc. It is simply a further glimpse into the mind of the original poet, Santoka; more takes on his language, imagery, and thought. It is a way to expand our understanding and further the conversation. As Cid Corman said

Poetry is that
conversation we could not
otherwise have had.

Cid Corman
Lilliput Review, #103

落ち葉ふる奥深く御仏をみる
ochiba furu oku fukaku Mihotoke o miru

Dead leaves fall, in the depth, I see the Buddha

Hiroaki Sato, Cicada 2:3 (1978)



Fallen leaves
Deep in the forest
I see a Buddha.

John Stevens, Santôka, Mountain Tasting #223; different format with translator not given, in Simply Haiku [Web] 3:3 (autumn 2005)




空襲警報るいるいとして柿あかし
kûshû keihô ruirui to shite kaki akashi

The air-raid alarm
Screaming, screaming;
Red persimmons.

John Stevens, Santôka, Mountain Tasting #160; different format with translator not given, in Simply Haiku [Web] 3:3 (autumn 2005)




死人とりまく人々に雲もなきそらや
shinin torimaku hito-bito ni kumo mo naki sora ya

no other translations




うれしいたよりもかなしいたよりも春の雪ふる
ureshii tayori mo kanashii tayori mo haru no yuki furu

Good news,
Bad news;
Spring snow falls.

John Stevens, Santôka, Mountain Tasting #215




しぐるるや死なないでゐる
shigururu ya shinu naide iru

Cold winter rain;
I am still alive.

R.H. Blyth, Blyth, History of Haiku II:181





Downpour, dead I’m not

Hiroaki Sato, Cicada 2:1 (1978)





Winter shower I'm still not dead

Hiroaki Sato, Santôka, Grass and Tree Cairn, 7





late autumn rain;
not yet dying

and

late autumn rain;
yet not dying

Stephen Wolfe, Wolfe, "Wreath of Weeds," 219






It’s drizzling,
Here I am,
Still alive.

Hisashi Miura and James Green, Selected Haiku from Sômokutô


For further info on the Haiku Database Project, you may contact Charles Trumbull at:


trumbullc AT comcast DOT net (all one phrase, with AT standing in for @ and DOT standing in for .)


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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review, #145 and, since this post has been about translation, what can be more fitting than this little tanka, from the seminal 100 Poems by 100 Poets collection (a full translation of which may be found here):

The mountain pheasant's tail
trails long behind
–longer still
is my loneliness
in the unendingly long night.

Kakinomoto-no Hitomaro
translated by Dennis Maloney & Hide Oshiro

completing
the green mountain
a pheasant cries

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Scott Watson: On Translating

I am privileged to be on a list of email recipents of the thoughts, poems, and translations of Scott Watson. Back in Lilliput issues numbering in the 120's and 130's, I published a number of Scott's renderings of haiku masters Taneda Santoka and Basho. In a recent mailing, Scott shared his thoughts on the art of translation. I was struck by them and thought you might be, too, so I requested permission to post his musings here. He graciously acceded to my request and, in addition, has allowed me to reprint the 5 translations of Santoka that were published in Lillie. I hope you enjoy this and the translations; I'm happy to say that I will be publishing two more Santoka renderings by Scott in a future issue.



*********************************

Translator’s Words

Ten years ago I wrote: “There is neither rhyme nor
reason to my method here. Just that each poem I take
--from wherever I take it--one at a time and follow
wherever it takes me, and if feels like it is two lines I
put it in two lines; if it feels like two words, two words
are what it is. Some go to four lines, some three. It
depends on how I sense each poem with, as, and in my
life-and-death, my breath, words.”

Ten years later all that can be added is that continuing
along with Santoka the poems his poems start in me at
times feel as if there is a trickling as with the flow of a
brook only downward. A small and gentle waterfall.

Others seem to call for a single ink brush stroke across
the page. These are the ones with what I call the Zen
grammar, which is a label I use for lack of a better one
to describe his poems that use a possessive to modify
a possessive to modify a possessive and how such a
poem retraces itself to a beginningless beginning.

Some choose to call this simple ungrammaticality that
may be a result of Santoka being a lubricated with drink
when composingor editing his work, but I think not.
Drunk or sober, the challenge is to respond to those
poems as my own wordlife. That requires letting go of
whatever protocol or accepted language behavior one
may have picked up over the years at home or at schools.
One must be uninhibited. One has to go with the flow.

Back in the USA sisters Clara Wright and Marsha Benson
at elementary school class parties used to complain that
white boys can’t dance. But they’d dance with me. It’s not
just a matter of knowing the right steps. The words
eventually appear and feel to me as if they are the ones
needed, the words that seem to best respond as Santoka’s
poem lives through me. Dance to the music beyond
measure.

Much is intuition. A sense of things that comes out of the
blue. Though I can live, sense things, through the Japanese
language I can’t say that I’m an official expert. No
certificates adorn my walls. At times I need a dictionary
and at times, with Santoka, even a dictionary does not help.
I ask Morie. Sometimes she can help, other times she can't.
I’m not out to make versions that are grammatically or
technically correct. If Santoka’s original has a present
progressive verb form it doesn’t mean my version will.
Anyway no linguist to my knowledge has ever proved that
a progressive verb in Japanese is exactly the same as a
progressive verb in English. They’re just labels anyway.

English is not Japanese, Japanese is not English. I am not
Santoka, Santoka is not me. I don’t accept translation in
the sense that this is equivalent to that. I do what I can.

Scott Watson
Sendai, Japan
June 3, 2010

*********************************


5 poems by Taneda Santoka as rendered by Scott Watson





falling leaves
deep deep seeing
Buddha

air raid sirens
one after another
persimmons are red

with the crowd around
a dead body
a sky without clouds

no matter news is
good or bad
spring snow

drizzling.
undying.

*********************************


For some further thoughts on Santoka, check out my review Mountain Tasting here. And now, one from a third master, Issa:

dying to the beat
of the prayer to Buddha...
one leaf falls

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Delicateness of Mr. Snake

Cover by Bobo


A couple of links of interest, plus a call for poems this week. I tried to get permission to reprint a review of the Basho Haiku Challenge Chapbook over at Hellium but wasn't able to, so I've provided a link. The winning haiku by Roberta Beary was reprinted with some squirrelly alignment (and on odd, floating e), so here it is correctly aligned:

on the church steps
a mourning dove

with mother's eyes

Roberta Beary

A very nice review by Greg, in which he supplies a generous selection of work from the chapbook, which is a available for the paltry sum of $3, postage paid. Like the poet dreaming of a butterfly dreaming of a poet, I've already begun thinking about The 2nd Annual Bashô Haiku Challenge; I've tentatively scheduled the month of September to be the period of open submissions, but keep an eye peeled here for updates as the time approaches.

The new edition of Roadrunner published and there is a wonderful set of haiga by Shodo for the work of Santoka as translated by Scott Watson. Some really beautiful work, all around.

I received notice that there has been a change of editor over at Pudding Magazine and they anxiously wish to test the wherewithal of said Andy Roberts, hence the nigh breathless call for poems that follows (please also note: this is a paying gig guys, so get on it):



***********************************************

Pudding House Announcement

HOT NEWS
from the desk of
Jennifer Bosveld, president of
Pudding House Publications. . .

Poets, feel free to eavesdrop on this letter to the Pudding
HouseTeam, and take it personally as I value you as well.
This isprobably the most gigantic announcement out of
Pudding Househeadquarters in its history of 30 years,
and we've had some mighty big moments. If you love
something, set it free. And I love Pudding Magazine.
/jen

Andy Roberts accepts permanent appointment as new
Editor and Chief of Pudding Magazine: The Journal of
Applied Poetry


A FINE LITERARY ARTS old school PRINT JOURNAL

same focus and priorities--
Get Ready for a surge
in Pudding's
flight across and into
the attention of
America's poets

YOU ARE in the THE FIRST ROUND OF
NATIONWIDE ANNOUNCEMENTS
Andy Roberts about to capture the limelight--
taking over the post held by Jennifer Bosveld for 30 years.

Andy Roberts
has been on the radar at Pudding House for the past year
especially--and since first being published in our journal.
He has a wide publication history including but not limited
to: Ambergris, Rhino, Sulphur River, Albatross, Atlanta
Review, Atom Mind, Bellowing Art, Black Bear Review,
Blue Collar Review, Bogg, The Cathartic, Chiron Review,
Cider Press Review, Coal City, Cokefish, Crazyquilt,
Fulcrum, Gargoyle, Hanging Loose, Hiram Poetry Review,
Home Planet News, Miller's Pond, Modern Haiku and
many other haiku publications, Nerve Cowboy, Plainsongs,
Poetry Motel, Rag Mag, Roanoke Review, San Fernando
Poetry Journal, Slipstream, Third Lung, Voices
International, Windless Orchard, and many many more.
He has published mainly poetry but fiction as well. Andy
Roberts came along just in time to be included in The
Pudding House Gang this year--our full-length "sampler"
on our editorial taste and those working for you, the
American Poet. Now he's a venue manager and emcee for
Pudding House, literary representative, and all-around
executive assistant learning the ropes by wrapping his
mind and energies around the broad array of products
and events for Pudding House Publications, the largest
literary small press in America. Andy lives on Clime
Road in Columbus Ohio. Get to know him. He doesn't
have a website yet, but he will, I'm sure.

Let's blast Andy with work! What do ya say?

WHAT THE AUTHOR RECEIVES:
copy of the issue you are in. Featured poet gets 4 copies
and $10.

Send only your best poems by U.S. Mail (he wants the
thrill of getting real mail in his mailbox at the street,
you know? You must include email address, all contact
information, and the good old SASE. Jen says Andy will
probably be tougher than she was so don't send your also
-rans. Andy Roberts, Pudding Magazine Editor, 3070
Clime Road, Columbus Ohio 43223
Or send through email attachment:
andyrobertspuddingmagazine@gmail.com. phone only if
you have something crucial to talk about with Andy and
email and mail cannot work for you:
614-607-6937 cell: 614-306-8814

***********************************************

This week's selection of poems from the archive comes from issue #27, November 1991. Chameleons, coyotes, snakes, fawns, crows, and toads had their way. Here's a taste:





My animal face grimaces
----and flees again into darkness
because I've come too close
------to remembering

David Richard

Coyote

stands outside,
twists his face
in the window,
sticks his tongue out,
makes all of the boys and girls
in the classroom laugh.

Charlie Mehrhoff

Masturbating

crow on a rooftop
canoeist without a canoe
choking on dusk
and jukebox sentimentality
sawdust on the floor
coyote seemingly disappearing
in its own shadow

M. Kettner

Untitled Wednesday Poem

Can snake misbehave
in Jungle? Can cougar
error by mountain cedar?
My sad old knees ache in bed
in dream before dawn, but
know their job is to bring
my body to its resting place,
like full bloomed rose
in August, like cherry tree
its trunk absorbing moon's heat.

Pat Andrus

And, the traditional last word goes to the master:

what delicateness!
a snake too sheds
his worldly robe

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don