27/01 Reading Response - Sanjana Thakur

I have read Basho, Li Bo, and Du Fu previously, in a seminar on descriptive language in poetry, but had not realised that haikai originated as an irreverent sort of pushback to classical and more elitist forms of poetry in Japan. While I love Basho’s simple attention to the natural environment and daily life, I was delighted to read the haikai about Princess Saho in the Shirane reading, and how even within the confines of a strict poetic form, poets could achieve humour. It reminded me of the double dactyl poetic form, which similarly relies on a tight structure but usually has silly and funny content. I was also thinking about how Basho’s journey with haikai seems to follow what Emma Ramadan termed ‘foreignisation’ – a deep engagement with poets and cultural references outside of Japan. 

In the “Afterword” to Salad Anniversary, it seems as though Machi Tawara continued, and found great success in, Basho’s legacy of foreignization, breathing new life into traditional Japanese poetic forms by doing what might be considered risky: borrowing from English and using contemporary references and colloquialisms, while still staying true to the musicality of form and traditional poetic modifiers/pillow words. I do have to admit that I found it harder to appreciate some of her poems––or at least the translations of them. Something in me bristles at the statement that “the appeal of her poems rests on their universality”, at the idea that poems must appeal to the widest audience, and I wonder if part of my reaction might be because of the translator’s choice to prioritise brevity over sound/syllable count. I found myself more moved by the quality of sound hearing Tawara read her work aloud in the Japanese. 

I loved getting to see Masaoka Shiki’s approach to writing poetry in Beichman’s lecture and wrote down many of his quotes. He created his own poetics of lightness, writing on the lampshade, and as someone who is writing a lot of poems based in observations of the natural world right now, I found it so valuable to hear how he ‘extracts’ so many poems from a single moment in a single setting. 

Regarding the Yosano Akiko segment, I thought it was strange that they only offer the last seven or so minutes to the pendulum swing in Akiko’s personality and poetic practice. I also wondered, given how much emphasis this interview puts on the gender and sexuality aspect of Akiko’s poetry, on her being Japan’s ‘first feminist poet’ what might have been changed or gained or lost by a male translator, or this male translator in particular, who seems to have great stake in offering a particular view of Yosano Akiko, to “remember the finest aspects” of her.