CONNOTATION PRESS- Featured Guest Editor: Alan Botsford

June 2012  Connotation Press: An Online Artifact
https://www.connotationpress.com/featured-guest-editor/fge-2012/1431-featured-guest-editor-alan-botsford-japanese-poems-in-translation

Featured Guest Editor: Alan Botsford - Japanese Poems in Translation

Alan Botsford has published two poetry collections, as well as the hybrid essay-dialogue-poetry collection Walt Whitman of Cosmic Folklore (2010). He is Associate Professor of American Literature at Kanto Gakuin University and serves as editor of Poetry Kanto, an annual bi-lingual journal concerned with the interplay of voices East, West, and beyond.

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Intro: A Snapshot

 

In contrast to the angst-ridden, gloomy post-war Japanese poetry as exemplified by the leading Arechi (Wasteland) poets Tamura Ryuichi, Ayukawa Nobuo and Kitamura Taro, Tanikawa Shuntaro’s poetry carved a new path and became known for its musicality, its pop culture references, its detachment and, not least, its buoyancy. (For a culture as group-oriented as Japan’s, it is noteworthy that his 2011 retrospective poetry collection in English is titled “The Art of Being Alone” (Cornell East Asian Series)). He writes a kind of ephemeral autobiographical verse with a rhythmic exploration of its sources in jazz music, comics, modern painting, etc. His is not an intellectual but a post-modern voice both shamelessly child-like and ruthlessly detached. There’s an androgyny to his voice seldom found to this extent in the West.

 

In the hyper-rational culture of the West there exists the mind-set where in order to speak one has to “break” the silence and where distinctions in language are made, it often seems, at the exclusion, even obliteration, of what lies beyond. In the more traditional East, on the other hand—as in the modern Japanese lyric-- the act of speaking preserves, or honors, silence as its root. Or in Sugimoto Maiko’s words, “Poetry is a thing that emerges upwards out of silence.”

 

What Japan’s modern lyric poets offer is more than a critique of modernity—they embody the effort to think outside modernity. If the ethics or essence of Japan is as “a non-accountability organism”, according to contemporary artist/blogger Hikosaka Naoyoshi, and if it is true, as he says, that “power structures of Japan have a sweetness and looseness, with roots in primitive cultures, not in civilization as in China or the West” [unofficial translation], then its poets and artists contemplate the root-world, the non-West world in such a way as to authenticate the reality of the tree in its wholeness, reminding us how, without its unseen roots, the tree falls.

 

The issue we are all facing-- what I would call ‘The West Issue’-- is critically a male and female issue. Artists and poets have the incredible capacity to cultivate the third eye, to see the symmetry of the underground or invisible world, not only History as linear ‘male’ narrative but Time as ‘female’ cycles with sources found in non-Western cultures, tales, songs, lullabies, nursery rhymes, prayers, chants, and so on. If the West is the upper world of the tree, the East is the lower world of the roots: reality and imagination; tangible and intangible; seen world and unseen world. To balance these forces in a give and take is what true and enduring art accomplishes.

 

Offered here, then, by the kind graces of Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, is a sampling from the wide spectrum of voices in contemporary Japanese poetry, including Tanikawa Shuntaro, Abe Hinako, Nomura Kiwao,  Tanaka Yosuke, Takahashi Mutsuo, Toshiko Hirata, and Yotsumoto Yasuhiro, along with younger female poets who have come into prominence such as Minashita Kiriu, Hachikai Mimi and Sugimoto Maiko. Allow me to thank all the poets for their permission to feature their poems in this column, as well as to acknowledge the generous efforts of the translators whose contributions (poetry translations, essay, interview and commentary) have been assembled here--they each cannot be thanked enough.

review of EKI MAE, Vol 1 -- by Alan Botsford

EKI MAE, Vol 1
Featured Poet Fumiko Yamanaka (1912-1936)
edited by Yuka Tsukagoshi, Judy Halebsky & Ayumu Akutsu

by Alan Botsford

If Japan’s poetic voices as enunciated by the four (contemporary & modern) poets in the pages of this new poetry journal are to be transformative, then Eki Mae vol. 1 arrives in the form of an annunciation, the miracle which, once spoken, cannot be quieted. What these poets, in both Japanese and English, pour into the individual reader as seminal words may, as with all poetry, take root and blossom, or it may, on the other hand, wither and dry up… Readiness is all: the right poem and the right reader, the right place and the right time. Eki Mae.

Eki Mae Vol. 1

Featured Poet Fumiko Yamanaka (1912-1936)

Yuka Tsukagoshi

Judy Halebsky

Ayumu Akutsu

Contact: ekimae.poems@gmail.com

review of NO/ON Philip Rowland -- by Alan Botsford

NO/ON: journal of the short poem, 7, Spring 2009
edited by Philip Rowland

Philip Rowland, British editor of NO/ON, a journal of English-language short poems published in Tokyo, Japan, has for the seventh issue laid out for readers what one of the poems calls "a fanciful geography." In fact the poem, by Canadian poet/dramatist J.J. Steinfeld (PK 2008), wittily and succinctly brings into focus one of the themes of this issue and is here worth quoting in full:

A FANCIFUL GEOGRAPHY

A location at the intersection

where the world begins and ends

stirs and renounces itself

what a fanciful geography

a writer with a trembling philosophy

devises new routes for escaping

concocts new messages for sending

to geographers of the distracted

devising and concocting

an almost sinister way

of becoming visible

a few words for the beginning of the world

a profusion of images for its end.

NO/ON's 'fanciful geography' is navigated sometimes one-line poem at a time, such as: "peace arrives boots march on without their feet" (Ed Markowski), or "A road crosses a road another road does not." (Mark Terrill). But to call these poems 'short' hardly does justice to the fancifulness and variety the form assumes in the pages of this journal, where can be found a 'shattered sonnet,' an 'anaximandrian,' a meditation, remixes, haiku, neologisms, concrete poems, puzzle poems, and 'mamaist' poems, to name

a few. Endings and beginnings meet and converge and in between "the wars go on & on." NO/ON 7's fanciful aesthetic reminds us, among other things, that fancy does not necessarily end where the real begins: each grows out of the other, forever spawning new geographies, new landscapes, new horizons, underscored by Gloria Frym's contribution 'Please Understand' which begins: "there was no story/ no arc of triumph/ don't be disappointed/ think lyrically"

If NO/ON's 'short-form' poems continue to open horizons for readers, they also refrain from demarcating them. 'CATCH THIS BOY! breathlessly announces the title of Jonathon Greene's poem. Rowland's NO/ON 7, it would seem, calmly offers "new routes for escaping."

-- Alan Botsford

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"NO/ON: journal of the short poem (formerly NOON) usually appears twice a year. However, there will be a hiatus in publication following this issue, and work will not be considered until the next call of submissions is made. To order this issue or check availability of back issues, please contact the editor via email or at the following address: Minami Motomachi 4-49-506, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0012, Japan."

(noonpress@mac.com)

An Evening of Poetry and Fiction at Temple University Japan

An Evening of Poetry and Fiction at TUJ Library

Come enjoy a reading and a cup of coffee with three local authors, Leza Lowitz, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, and Alan Botsford Saitoh.

Date

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Time

7:00 p.m.

Venue

TUJ Library, Azabu Hall 4th floor (Access)

Admission

This is a free event and is open to public.
Light refreshments will be served.

Contact

cahill@tuj.ac.jp

Leza Lowitz

Leza Lowitz was born in San Francisco and grew up in Berkeley. She has published three books of poems, a book of short stories, and twelve other books about Japan. Among other honors, Lowitz has received the PEN Oakland Poetry Award, the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, grants from the NEA and NEH, a California Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature from Columbia University. Her poetry has been translated into five languages. Lowitz first lived in Tokyo from 1989-1994, where she freelanced for "Art in America" and wrote for NHK Radio's "Japan Diary." She was also a lecturer at Tokyo University and an editor at Tokyo University Press. After almost a decade in California, she returned to Tokyo in 2003, when she opened Sun and Moon Yoga. She now lives in Tokyo with her husband and their young son. Her new book of poetry is forthcoming from Stone Bridge Press, and a book of folktales for children is forthcoming from Mandala Publishing in 2010.

Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

Jane Joritz-Nakagawa is a long time resident of Japan originally from the USA. Her most recent poetry book is Exhibit C (Ahadada, 2008). Her previous two books of poetry are Aquiline (2007) and Skin Museum (2006). Jane teaches courses in poetry, pedagogy, gender, and other subjects at Aichi University of Education where she works as Associate Professor. Jane's primary research interest is the relationship of feminism to avant garde poetry by women. Well over a hundred of Jane's poems, as well as numerous essays, academic papers and interviews, have been published in journals and anthologies in Japan, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. She is currently finalizing her fourth book of poems.

Alan Botsford Saitoh

Alan Botsford Saitoh grew up in Maryland, U.S., earning a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a M.F.A. from Columbia University, and for the past twenty years has lived in Japan where he teaches at Kanto Gakuin Univeristy and edits (since 2003) Poetry Kanto, a poetry journal bridging east, west and beyond. He has published two books of poetry--mamaist: learning a new language (Minato No Hito, 2002) and A Book of Shadows (Katydid Books, 2003), while a book of essays & poems, Walt Whitman of Cosmic Folklore, is forthcoming in 2010 from Sage Hill Press. He lives with his wife and son in Kamakura.

Reading by Yoko Danno, Takako Arai, Kyong-Mi Park - review by Alan Botsford

reading by Yoko Danno, Takako Arai & Kyong-Mi Park
at Flying Books in Shibuya, Tokyo  (book launch)
December 22, 2008

Flying Books in Shibuya was the venue earlier this week for the book launch reading of A Sleeping Tiger/ Dreams of Manhattan (The Ikuta Press, 2008), the new English verse collaboration between Kobe-based poet & author Yoko Danno and Katmandu/Washington D.C.-based poet James C. Hopkins. At the outset, poets Takako Arai and Kyong-Mi Park, who each read one poem apiece in Japanese, helped draw the audience slowly into the evening's bilingual, bicultural orbit. They were followed by the evening's featured poets whose quieting spirits, melding and harmonizing on stage to give contrapuntal life to a mysterious third voice that enchanted those in attendance, brought new meaning both to the phrase 'a meeting of the minds' and to the experience of 'live' poetry readings. For the contours of their alternately read-aloud-poems seemed to grow before this reviewer's very eyes, and the space in the second floor of Flying Books, already warm and welcoming, seemed to develop and expand into something fuller, as unexpected as it was unassuming.

In addition, Ms. Danno's recently published translation of the Kojiki, entitled Songs and Stories of the Kojiki (Ahadada Books, 2008), is, like her poetry, a boon for anyone who would view and engage the world from the perspective of 'mythic dawn'. This new translation of one of the literary keys to the foundations of Japan's ancient folklore and culture reminds us that, among other things, the myths or archetypes that we 'read' in everyday life, and that 'read' us, are ever-present yet ever-changing, and that just because something is beyond our sight doesn't mean it escapes our notice.

Songs and Stories of the Kojiki

http://www.amazon.com/Songs-Stories-Kojiki-Yoko-Danno/dp/0978141474/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230186232&sr=1-1

The Blue Door (Word Works, 2006)

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Door-Danno-James-Hopkins/dp/0915380625/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230697068&sr=1-2

-- Alan Botsford

review of Shogo Oketani & Leza Lowitz America & Other Poems by Ayukawa Nobuo -- Alan Botsford

AMERICA & OTHER POEMS, by Ayukawa Nobuo. Selected and translated by Shogo Oketani & Leza Lowitz. Kaya Press, 2008, 152 pp., $14.95 (paper).

Brief review by Alan Botsford

For anyone needing an accurate set of coordinates for modern post-war Japanese poetry, Shogo Oketani & Leza Lowitz's deftly written preface to their new translation of Ayukawa Nobuo's 'America & Other Poems' would be a good starting point. With their sure grasp of backstory--biographical, political, social--that informs the poems, the translators do the reader a great service by providing fascinating and comprehensive context (see also Additional Materials & the superb Afterword on translation). But the real pleasures of this book are the poems themselves. Ayukawa, a founding member of the famous Arechi, or Waste Land group, is a poet of immense seriousness and resourcefulness whose Melvillian view of the U.S. is bracing. (Amazingly, he never visited America in his lifetime.) Translation-wise, the idiom these English versions achieve shine with hard-earned integrity and multi-faceted, diamond-like clarity. Many of the poems first appeared in journals in the U.S. and Japan, among them Poetry Kanto. The translations have undergone a metamorphosis, with each successive incarnation-- to this editor's ear and eye-- improving upon the previous one. A case in point is the poem entitled 'Ishmael', first published in Poetry Kanto in 2005 featuring a second stanza as follows:

He, who didn't say at all

from where and why he came,

was the chosen one.

Ishmael, who wandered barefoot

strongly believing in the heritage of the human soul,

he was the chosen one.

In the 2008 version, the stanza is divided in two:

There's something decent about this man

who never said a word

about where he came from

or why.

There's something decent about

this Ishmael

who wandered barefoot,

believing only in the transmission

of the human soul.

The changes speak for themselves. A breakthrough has occurred. And these stanzas are only one of a multitude of luminous examples among the poems. This writer finds the multiple renderings that a good translation undergoes sometimes mesmerizing. William I. Elliott and Kawamura Kazuo—‘godfathers’ of poetry translation in Japan--offer proof when comparing, say, one of their many Tanikawa poems translated years ago with the same poem revised years later. Often the difference can be a real study of honing one's craft. Oketani & Lowitz’s 'America & Other Poems' by Ayukawa Nobuo displays a similar dedication to and excellence in craft.

-- Alan Botsford

review of JAPAN'S OFFICIAL POETRY BOXING COMPETITION

Japan Reading Boxing Association's Annual Poetry Boxing Competition 
Inno Hall near Toranomon Station in Tokyo 

At the sound of the bell, the bow-tie-clad referee in the ring steps forward, shouts 'Fight-o!', then steps back and lets the 'poetry boxer' into the spotlight to recite her or his poem. Japan Reading Boxing Association's Annual Poetry Boxing Competition at Inno Hall near Toranomon station in Tokyo is underway. Sixteen contestants--champions of varying ages--from teens to 40s, and from various prefectures throughout the country--compete for the title of 2006 Poetry Boxing Champion of Japan. For the next three hours, there's barely a lull in the buzz and energy on stage and in the audience. Pairs of NHK cameramen in the hall are busily filming for a TV program of the event (to be aired on NHK sometime in the near future).The crowd, five hundred strong, listens intently, even actively--some children giggle and let out cries of glee in response to certain poets' performances. The performers' costumes are eye-catching: one young man in top hat, tails, and white gloves; a tall woman in nurse whites; a slim marathon runner in shorts and tank top; a Nepalese beauty in a bright red saree; a girl in a classic high school blue uniform; a short-haired woman clad in swirling, multi-colored robes. Altogether quite a spectacle. And the poetry? The contestants recite in Japanese at a brisk pace, the winners advancing from the first round of sixteen, to the quarterfinals, to the semi-finals, through to the finals. As the final round comes to a close, the two finalists--Nepal's Mahatto Laritto Maya, and Japan's Kimura Yumi--are quickly given four envelopes with four different topics from which to choose. They must perform extemporaneously on stage. The audience is enthralled. The winner? Kimura Yumi. The seven judges--among them manga artist and TV personality Ebisu-san, as well as British-born radio deejay Peter Barakan--file dutifully on stage for final comments and the awards ceremony. For excitement and spectacle, it was well worth the price of admission. Next year's competition will be held in October. 

--Alan Botsford