just wondering if...

[josie hibbing]

Hi mentors! I'm just wondering how you come to understand the haiku of the Japanese masters. Do you know Japanese, or at least some Japanese? I hope you don't think this question is too personal.
I'm forever grateful to you for all the haiku lessons I learned from the forum  :)

Josie

[AlanSummers]

Hi Josie,

There are few of us who can really understand Japanese as if it's our first language except perhaps for Dhugal Lindsay?  Someone like Fay Aoyagi is worth talking to, as she was Japanese and then became Japanese-American, and I think she first got into haiku by writing it in English.

I've read dozens of  translations, because many translations around the Victorian, or after, were pretty hopeless.

I can heartiliy recommend purchasing more recent translations that are around, or coming out.

I have several collections about Basho, and will always be on the lookout for more coming out, also good translations of contemporary Japanese haiku writers are essential.

Alan

[josie hibbing]

Hi Alan! Thank you for the response.
I have read from the internet different translations of some of Basho's haiku. Like for instance, his "old pond" haiku with a bunch of translations from different people. ( I notice that some outshine the others.) These people that wrote the translations must know Japanese.

Have a nice day!

Josie

[Gabi Greve]

Hi Josie,
I am German by birth and live in Japan since 1977. I am a translator of scientific texts (medicine is my subject, being a medical doctor myself.)
I came to Japanese haiku about 25 years back, in a Japanese haiku group in Kamakura with Japanese sensei and all in style .. Then I moved to the countryside and do my bit on the internet now.

My encounter with ELH is much later, since 2004. Now I am trying my best to find translations, but English is not my native language either.

I have a translation forum you are welcome to peek to see some of the problems us poor translators have
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/translatinghaiku/

The more translations and paraverse of a Japanese poem you can locate, the better.

Gabi

[AlanSummers]

Hi Josie,

Unfortunately not all translators of Japanese haiku necessarily know Japanese.  They probably read romanised Japanese, aka romaji, which was created so that Europeans and Americans, for example, could get a taste of what Japanese 'looked like' and 'sounded like'.

There are probably a few translations, or as Susumu Takiguchi more correctly calls them, versions.

As the internet has been slow to catch up with printed books, as so has digital books, it's still necessary to consider purchasing print books.

I have well over a dozen books on Basho as no one book is enough, and constantly seek contemporary Japanese haiku in translation.

It is difficult to translate Japanese haiku into English-language versions, and a translator needs to both comfortable with all the language systems (Japanese has three); a poet; and basically a darned good creative writer in general, not just a technician.

Basho's old pond haiku has been proficiently translated in the last decade by a few, but we still don't touch deeply enough by using English.

It is imperative to read a wide range of Japanese haiku from Classic (pre-Shiki); Modern (Shiki era to 1990s); and Contemporary (21st Century).

My classifications of those periods may be controversial, but as haiku has moved on so much, so quickly, I tend to think of anything before 2000 as modern, but not contemporary.

all my best,

Alan

Hi Alan! Thank you for the response.
I have read from the internet different translations of some of Basho's haiku. Like for instance, his "old pond" haiku with a bunch of translations from different people. ( I notice that some outshine the others.) These people that wrote the translations must know Japanese.

Have a nice day!

Josie

[josie hibbing]

Hi Gabi! Thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself. I'm very glad to know more about you. And I'm grateful to you for being one of the mentors.

Twenty-five years of Japanese haiku-- wow that's amazing!

I read some of the postings from the link you gave. They are very helpful. I will read some more later. Thanks for all the info you provided. Have a nice day!

[josie hibbing]

Alan, thank you for all the information. I'm very poor with haiku knowledge. There is so much haiku history to be learned and I'm thankful for every opportunity that come my way. For now, I don't have much time to read a lot because I'm in the peak of busyness of my life. I have 3 teen-agers, 4 younger kids and a toddler :)
plus I home school my kids. I would like very much to learn though as much as I can. When my kids are older I would like to study haiku in a deeper way.

I now know that you can have many English translations of a Japanese haiku but still not enough to touch its deepest meaning.

Thanks again Alan and a good day to you!

Josie