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Does anyone like Haiku? I like the immediacy & the imagery of them. They can be tricky though.....only 17 syllables!
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The poorly westernized version of the haiku is limited to 17 syllables. This is an artificial limitation that is not used in the Japanese language haiku.
Check these columns for a really good reference on haiku. -
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Basho's frog haiku in Japanese has 17 syllables
The original Japanese:
Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
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Which doesn't mean Basho was "limited" to 17 syllables - only that this particular haiku is 17 syllables.
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I beg to differ. In fact, the limit is the whole idea. Please, Scott, find me some examples of Japanese haiku that aren't 17 syllables. I would love to read them.
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Do you like the Haiku that I have posted on this site?
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The first two are okay - they don't "do" anything for me, particularly - I tend to go for the humorous ones.
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I'm not going to do that for you. Instead, you should refer to Don's columns (linked below).
I don't claim to be an expert on haiku. I defer to the experts when I am out of my depth.
More people should do that. -
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I have read it and I appreciated it very much and IM him about it at the time it was featured. I believe he is saying that American haiku is not limited to 17 syllables - but what I most liked was his reinforcement that it should be written as a spontaneous thought.
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My understanding is that you will find no such stricture to haiku (or to any of the Eastern forms). I could be wrong. Could you?
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I know that English transliteration. Have you read Basho's The Narrow Road to the Deep North?
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I haven't written one of those in ages.... I've tried different forms and versions, and even attempted a Japanese one (the translation back was hilarious
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They have a certain immediacy, imagist in nature, concise & yet so bloody difficult!
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Haiku
are not written in english -
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should we call them word-bites?
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Thank you for that Scot.Has anyone read 'The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry' by Stryck & Ikemoto?
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No, but I have enjoyed many of the English translations of the Master's haiku over at Oldpoetry. Thank goodness for translation though it may be far for what the original writer intended and not even read in the right direction. lol.
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an unconstrained pendulum
follows a path back and forth
as the earth turns underneath -
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This is very profound. Could be a writer's creed.
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I have always wondered about translations, you must lose & gain in them.
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read ten different translations of a poem and get ten different interpretations.
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30 Translations of Basho's famous haiku
http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/basho-frog.htm
case in point. -
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Thanks for That!
Wonderful. I like Allan Watts best. -
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Thanks, I like the one with the colon as the second line.
Would you agree that these all seem to embody the same essence, though?
It gets considerably more complicated with longer poems that rhyme - take this Rilke, for instance (with all the translations offered here):
http://www.textetc.com/workshop/wt-rilke-1.html
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They seem to embody the same essence, but nuances of word choice and position alter the impact quite a lot.
I saved the Rilke link, thank you. An unenviable task, but I find it encouraging that there is so much interest in his work. I have high school German, and like to read the same work in two languages. -
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Have you ever read the bilingual edition of the selected poems of Bertolt Brecht? (The H.R. Hays edition)
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No, I haven't. Another item for the wish list, I see. I'm actually not familiar with Brecht's poetry at all.
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I think he is underated as a poet. Most people know him for his plays & the lyrics to Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife). But he was a superb poet, many of the themes he would later develop in his plays were first developed in his poems.
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I have just read a few on Old Poetry - yes, he would be good to read in a bilingual edition.
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I would like to at least see the originals posted with the translations - even if I can't read the language - I can see where it rhymes, etc. and don't go away with the impression that all these were written as free verse.
What say we all give the old college try to translate this erotic sonnet of Brecht's about fucking an angel? ("fick" means fuck.) http://www.welt.de/kultur/article1931546/Bertolt_Brecht_erklaert_die_Verfuehrung_von_Engeln.html
I won't even attempt to preserve the rhyme... Just try to get at the essence. -
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What a great sonnet! I'm going to play with the translation and try to write something from it.
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Do you have an English translation of the erotic sonnet about seducing an angel?
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I can't find one on the net but here's my attempt at a very literal translation which I did without trying to preserve the lyricism of his original sonnet:
About the Seduction of an Angel
Angels can not be seduced at all or quickly.
Pull him into the entryway,
stick your tongue in his mouth and reach
under his robe, til he gets wet; put
his face to the wall, lift his robe
and fuck him. If he stares in anguish
then hold him tightly and let him come two times;
otherwise, by the end, he'll be in shock.
Admonish him so he sways his butt;
let him know he's free to grab your balls.
Tell him he can fall without fear
while he is hanging between earth and heaven -
but don't look him in the face while you are fucking him
and, for goodness sake, don't crush his wings.
-- Bertolt Brecht
(translated from the German) -
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I don't have a copy of the poem but that looks like a good translation. I would rather have a more literal translation (particularly with Brecht) than one that is aesthetically better but has changed the meaning too much. I am not so keen on Hay's translations even though they were done in collaboration with the author himself.
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Thank you, I think I agree that meaning should take precedence, though if the translator was actually working with the poet, that would be about as optimal as you could get. Perhaps we need a translation thread, as there are many aspects of this that interest me - like what do you do with word play and double entendres which you can not hope to preserve in translation, even if you, the translator, recognize them.
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I think there could be an exception to the rule. With some Haiku & other forms of Asiatic poetry the cultural difference is possibly too great for an accurate portrayal of meaning. That's why I like Stryk & Ikemoto's translations in the Penguin book of Zen Poetry.
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this is far too long to be a haiku
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seducing angels
takes balls and a heavy hand
just don't crush his wings -
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object
object object
object
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syllable restrictions
Again, an item extrapolated from a talk given by a past president of both the American and International Haiku associations, the syllable count restrictions in haiku differ in English and Japanese because of the language difference. While English is a heavily syllabic language, Japanese is not so. (I don't speak it. I don't know.) It's hard to compare the "syllable count" between the two because of that and because of other language requirements (adding an additional syllable at the ends of certain words, etc.)
Don't know that this makes any difference in your discussion. Just seemed relevant.
celtic queen -
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Sound bites, syllables & Basho's frog
Yeah, I just don't know enough about Japanese as a language. The only Japanese I know, apart from Basho's frog, are martial arts terms. For many years I had them shouted at me in Karate & Ju Jutsu dojos. I do a really good KIAI (spirit shout) & have a good gyakazuki punch. I have read a lot (of Basho particularly) but in translation. I will have to research this further. It has been an interesting debate though. I tried to start a topic on Milton's 'Paradise Lost' but nobody is interested. I thought you would be up for that, it is an epic.
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Cynewulf
Jun 18 2:10 PM
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