Yosano Akiko’s poetry presents an interesting challenge insofar as it is tanka, but deviates from traditionally tanka-like diction. The translator’s task when bringing Akiko into another language is, as I see it, to somehow communicate this unconventionality while retaining the essential tanka-like qualities of the poems.
(more…)Uta ni kike na
Tare no no hana ni
akaki inamu
omomuki aru kana
haru tsumi motsu ko
My translation project for Japanese 466. Be gentle, internet. Note the gorgeous bilingual typesetting.
That is all.
I’ve been playing a lot of Crimson Skies and Halo 2 lately—I have much to say about it, especially the latter. But for some inscrutable reason, I was possessed to write a Terzanelle on the subject of getting blown up in a Crimson Skies dogfight, something which happens with alarming regularity.
And now I’m going to inflict it on you.
In the crimson skies I died today
Shot down once, twice, thrice, and more
How will I live—I cannot sayTho’ others might think me a bore
I cannot but to slow my craft
And opening fire upon the fore—But while I slow, to my abaft
Yon ace takes steady aim with Hound
And smiles at his target daftAnd then his blazing guns do pound
my hull—my engine, flaming, screams
that awful, ghastly, deathly soundSo gathered here we are, two teams
the red and blue, in mortal war
And O! my shameful failed schemeAnd so it’s writ in crimson lore
In the crimson skies I died today
To land again, upon death’s shore
How will I live—I cannot say.
I do more translating and reading of Japanese text now that I ever have—ironically, though, most of it goes unpublished. I’ll be writing on Miyazawa Kenji soon, though, and to that end here’s a translation of one of his poems, “Itinerant Mirage.” It’s unquestionably a first draft; comments on the diction and flow are welcomed.
Ah, Kenji, you morose bastard, you.
(more…)The traveling orders were posted
Two wastelands, both blasted—I’m toasted!
Far east was the one
The other loves guns
Naught unchanged ‘cept where my site’s hosted
Apparently I’m in Montana
But understand why—I just canna’
A girl’s involved
that’s one problem solved
The boredom, though, that I’m no fan o’
Up ahead there looms graduate school
In Boulder, it’s lousy with fools
That is, if you’re Right
or a Red troglodyte
but me, I’m a Blue-minded tool
To bungo class there I shall plod
And try not to do work that’s slipshod
avoiding the theme
of a pissed academe
like Professor Rasplica Rodd
This time, The Back Horn’s “A Night of Sky, of Stars, of the Sea.”
These guys are weird. And they have a fixation on childhood.
(more…)I wrote ten or so last night and this morning. Most are far too vicious to print. Here are the lighter ones.
Well shit, here I am once again
Not eating, not sleeping—that trend
My head, one big ache
Japan’s on the take
With me on the bankruptcy end
It’s probably not Japan’s fault
Pathetic, this wallowing ALT
The blame is all mine
Depression sublime
Each word like a cut filled with salt
So now I am up to draft three
This exodus note jamboree
I know it should stop
I doubt I can top
the angst of Spring two thousand three.
Regarding the season:
The leaves are of scarlet and gold
But outside it’s rainy and cold
Fall used to be
My favorite sea-
son, now it is just getting old.
The news:
So who’s a political bore?
I can shout louder, and more
“Bush is a foo’!”
How dreadfully new
I haven’t heard that one before.
And my trip in a couple of days:
And so off to Kobe I head
(I’d much rather be home in bed)
To suffer the fools
From Japanese schools
(However, they might wind up dead.)
That is all.
A couple more bleak limericks. I should try a funny one, or a dirty one.
“So why did you learn Japanese”?
Well-meaning friends ask me to please
explain my sad pout
but as it turns out
There ain’t no cure for this disease
“Don’t try this at home” is fair warning
‘Though home’s so far there it’s now morning
The differing times
The long-distance dimes
I spend seem to worsen the mourning
I’d rhymed myself into a corner on that last one, and couldn’t think my way out of it, hence the “mourning” cop-out.