I've been reminded of a pictorial example which uses the metaphor of 'instant' metamorphosis which appeared in many local (Australian) newspapers and magazines this century and which was designed to be (and was) immediately accessible to people who might not have read a page of poetry in their lives, let alone know the term metaphor.
The picture is of a dinner party, all seated around the table. Centre of picture is a man with the head of a very vicious-looking, snarling Doberman Pincer, fangs bared, spiked collar and all, and a woman seated next to him starting back in shock and horror. The impression is of instant transformation, and we do not mistake the man for an ancient Egyptian, jackal-headed god.
Most Australians would not need to read the text to understand that the man with the dog's head was about to "bite the woman's head off" (a metaphor in common speech) or that this sudden change was about to be attributed to loss of social poise due to his overdoing the alcoholic beverages. And some of us would recognize one source of this 'transformation into wolf man' metaphor in the C19 novel, "Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde" and werewolf themes. In common culture, we are used to people ‘turning into’ something else, metaphorically speaking. Circe’s pigs are not as rare as we’d like them to be and many a Drongo is distinguishable from the actual bird only by his inability to fly and lack of literal feathers.
But which translation of Kohta's 'motorbike' haiku is closest to a true rendition of the original?
After hateful words,
I roar off
like a motorcycle.
(tr. by Lucian Stryk)
or
After a heated argument
I go out to the street
and become a motorcycle
(tr. by Makoto Ueda)
In any case, I admit that my preference for the Kacian ‘in a tent in the rain…’ is because I can imagine myself into it, it seems to invite me to be the ‘I’ who becomes a climate and allows me the basis for doing that, whereas Tohta’s seems to be telling me something about himself. As does Fay Aoyagi’s ‘application to become a crab’. Though I find humour in both and can appreciate them to a certain extent, I find that I am ‘audience’ to these poems, rather than participant. To me they are 'quirky', individualistic, in a way that the Kacian ku is not.
(Maybe this is the result of having listened for too many years to ‘confessional’ performance poetry before I found a welcome change in many haiku?)
- Lorin
