Jan 28th Readings - Lane

    Throughout all of these readings, I was struck by the notion of the haikai spirit. Though Tawara and Yosano wrote mostly tanka instead of haiku, I believe that many of the fundamentals that create the haikai spirit can be understood through their poetry. As Shirane writes, haiku “grew out of the interaction between the vernacular and the classical language” and “parodies… classical convention” through the introduction of tension between contemporary and classical, refined and vulgar. The “haikai spirit was also marked by a constant search for novelty and new perspectives.” This new approach to Japanese poetics and poetry and the tension inherent to said approach is what caused it to become so ingrained in Japanese poetic culture today. Although Yosano wrote tanka, which are mostly marked by their connection to poetic and classical conventions and not by this haikai spirit, I feel as though her approach to poetry can be connected to this haikai spirit. Her poetry discussed female sensuality and was openly anti-war, both topics that went considerably against the grain at the time and were unthinkable to write in classical poetry. She creates a tension between her classical form and her modern, progressive attitude in her poetry. Similarly, Tawara utilizes a “sophisticated mixture of old and new,” which mirrors the interaction between vernacular and classical that evokes the haikai spirit.

The “lightness” and “resonating aspects” or “stickiness” that Beichman and Shirane discuss, as well as Shiki’s concept of mindfulness and dedicated observation, also find themselves as a core part of Tawara’s poetry. She writes with a “cheerful, light tone” and “values the ordinary things in life,” turning simple observations like the sound and atmosphere of “Hotel California” and the lovely taste of a simple salad into something resonating, something “sticky.” Her use of classical aspects of form cause it to resonate as well, and the tension creates something unforgettable. Although these two authors write tanka, I believe that they have the haikai spirit to a degree. 

These concepts are particularly interesting to think about in translation, as well—Carpenter notes that the classical form that Tawara uses, the same form that caused her book to become such a smash hit, cannot be effectively translated. The tension that allowed Tawara’s poems to resonate has to be explained, not consumed. How can classical form be translated effectively, if at all? English has many older poetic traditions, and the association of love with both sonnets and tanka could be considered a convincing reason to translate Tawara’s poems as if they were part of a sonnet, but that requires a level of domestication that I personally disagree with, as it completely recontextualizes a Japanese work, grounded in Japanese classical form, into something else entirely. Beichman also notes that the possibility for multiple interpretations of a poem is a large part of its existence, and one translation existing as one interpretation can potentially be a way to preserve that aspect of classical form. Could a book containing multiple translations of the same poem be the best approach? 

This has, of course, already been done with Basho’s frog poem—Ginsberg’s translation always resonated with me, as I feel like it translates the comedy inherent to the haikai spirit:

The old pond

A frog jumped in,

Kerplunk!

Even though this translation (interpretation?) conveys one aspect of the haiku (breaking of standard conventions by having a frog jump instead of sing; creating a tension between classical and contemporary) that makes it so “sticky,” a multitude of other translations at its side can aid in helping a reader understand the importance of form, and how haiku function.