The Seashell Game – Round One

[Lorin]

well, I'm going by the English version, as given in David's translation. I don't have any Japanese at all.

I did notice, though, that Atom Heart Mother has been translated from English to the Japanese as only two words, not three. How much does this change things? Would it read, in Japanese, more like 'Atom-heart Mother' or 'Atom Heart-mother'? If it did, then there wouldn't be the problem of subject/verb agreement as there is with 'Atom Heart Mother...spurts'. 

Unless, as you indicate, Eve, we are to take the three words, Atom Heart Mother, as someone's name, three proper nouns, like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Mickey Graham Mouse. (I think this is unlikely)

Unless it's to read 'Atom Heart Mother [the title of the PF album] spurts', which would be surrealistic, but at the level of syntax, quite normal and not difficult.

If there was a cut after genshi shinbo, the following lines wouldn't make grammatical sense in English:

in the prefab bathroom
spurts blood

It'd need to be 'blood spurts' or 'spurts of blood'.

I don't envy David his translator's job! Even though I don't have the language, I can get a feel for how damn difficult it must be to translate from Japanese to English, and vice versa!

- Lorin

[eluckring]

I feel David's translation points to a singular subject/situation and the poem not having a strong internal cut.

Lorin, did I understand you correctly in an earlier post?  weren't you saying you read an implied cut after the second line in the English version—I don't understand that.  I don't think I understand what you think the ATOM HEART MOTHER of the first line is.  The original newspaper headline ("ATOM HEART MOTHER NAMED"-- about the woman with the nuclear pace-maker) created a subject as a person, and she then became a thing (an album, a bar), and then for me, a symbolic character in this poem while at the same time the whole thing is a situation.

I bring up the idea of a cut after genshi shenbo ( I'm limited to the romaji and its translation of the sounds of the Japanese) after discovering the possible reference to a specific place, the Shinjuku bar.  I don't begin to understand all the different uses of "wo", and I don't see a typical subject particle anywhere.  I was wondering if, in the original Japanese, the poem could read in multiple ways grammatically, though it would not make sense in the English translation. Like you imply, I don't think a poem's translation can possibly hold all of the grammatical play that is possible in its original language.  

Are there others with a command of Japanese who might offer their thoughts on the structure of the poem?

And it would be great to hear if there are different interpretations of the poem than have
been suggested so far.

[Lorin]

Lorin, did I understand you correctly in an earlier post?  weren't you saying you read an implied cut after the second line in the English version—I don't understand that.  I don't think I understand what you think the ATOM HEART MOTHER of the first line is.  The original newspaper headline ("ATOM HEART MOTHER NAMED"-- about the woman with the nuclear pace-maker) created a subject as a person, and she then became a thing (an album, a bar), and then for me, a symbolic character in this poem while at the same time the whole thing is a situation.

Hi Eve,
         I've speculated on the possibilities I found as I tried to find my way into this poem. The proposition was that if we applied Hoshinaga Fumio's particular template for association (based on the apparently well-known song and followed for 'squid peppermint') to Ami Tanaka's 'Atom Heart Mother', then we get an associative sequence something like this:

Atom - has a nucleus: Heart - is inside the body structure, is a kind of nucleus: Mother - has a womb, another kind of nucleus: prefab bathroom - is a womb-like space


'spurts blood' , then, breaks this string of association, doesn't belong in the set. I speculated whether this break could be one kind of cut, kire.

"I don't think I understand what you think the ATOM HEART MOTHER of the first line is." - Eve

I think of 'Atom Heart Mother' of L1, as given in the English version, as mainly the title of the Pink Floyd album plus any association that brings, but along the way I found that the three words of L1 plus 'prefab bathroom/unitto basu' followed Hoshinaga Fumio's associative pattern (atom: heart: mother: unit bathroom: - see earlier post) which he tells us is traditional. So I speculated that these four things could be an associative sequence/set as well as being the album title. L1 isn't rendered in all caps (ATOM HEART MOTHER) in the poem, so L1 is distinguished from the album title, whilst of course alluding to it.

Atom Heart Mother
in the prefab bathroom
spurts blood

Unless we are to take 'Atom Heart Mother' primarily as three proper nouns (and the cap at the beginning of each certainly allows for this possibility), the names of one person, place or thing (eg. 'George Walker Bush') which I feel is unlikely, there is a difficulty with verb agreement which wouldn't be there if L1 was clearly only the album title (ATOM HEART MOTHER) or the allusion to it (Atom Heart Mother) So, one of my earlier questions was,  'What is it that spurts blood?' 'What is the subject of the verb?'

All of my speculations only apply to the poem in English, of course, as given. We have to read it as given. For all I know, David might've had to choose between the above and the more passive:

Atom Heart Mother
in the prefab bathroom
spurts of blood

Then there would be no obvious cut/ kire (apart from the kind of cut/ kire after the associative set that I speculated on), since 'Atom Heart Mother' is/are in the bathroom, but so are 'spurts of blood' The middle line then would work something like 'the doors of Kannon', opening to both L1 and L3.

But this would lose the personified 'Atom Heart Mother' that you mention and that's an interesting line of speculation in itself, another sequence or set:

1. the woman, unnamed in the headline
2. the ATOM HEART MOTHER of the headline
3. ATOM HEART MOTHER, the album title, divorced from the context of the headline & woman
4. Atom Heart Mother, a named person/ persona, who, in the poem, spurts blood.

Then there is a kind of return. We have, not the original woman, but an entity with the name, Atom Heart Mother, who 'spurts blood'. This is a kind of 'reincarnation' of the woman who underwent a two-step 'disappearing' process via the headline and the album title.  Perhaps this is the way this haiku should be primarily read, after all? Though I thought it unlikely, earlier, I can see now that it's a valid one, and the one that makes the most grammatical sense of the poem as it's rendered in English, as well as bringing in the element of animism which is at the foundations of Japanese culture. (Shinto)


- Lorin

[Don Baird]

A couple of thoughts:

atom heart mother bleeding in the prefab bathroom  or  atom heart mother in the prefab bathroom bleeding

I don't see any strong kire or in particular, a kireji, in the Japanese or English versions.  The poem seems to read as one continuous line with little to indicate much of a pause.  Is it possible that "spurts blood" may be a little large for the poem?  Is "bleeding" a possible translation?  

atom heart mother seems to be one section while bleeding in the prefab bathroom is a second section. But there is no true indicator of an official "break" that is apparent, at least to me.

Just thinking too much tonight and thought I'd share it's randomness... :)

all my best,

Don  

[eluckring]

Thanks for re-explaining, Lorin.  It is clearer to me now.
and, Don, thanks for your comments on the structure.

[Lorin]

.

unit bathroom
the sounds of water
drown The Scream

(that's me, having a Munch moment)

- Lorin

[Lorin]

A couple of thoughts:

atom heart mother bleeding in the prefab bathroom  or  atom heart mother in the prefab bathroom bleeding

I don't see any strong kire or in particular, a kireji, in the Japanese or English versions.  The poem seems to read as one continuous line with little to indicate much of a pause.  Is it possible that "spurts blood" may be a little large for the poem?  Is "bleeding" a possible translation?  

atom heart mother seems to be one section while bleeding in the prefab bathroom is a second section. But there is no true indicator of an official "break" that is apparent, at least to me.

Just thinking too much tonight and thought I'd share it's randomness... :)

all my best,

Don  

Hi Don,
         It's true that 'spurts blood' is strong in the poem. I don't know whether 'bleeding' is a possible translation (but someone will, I hope)

Not sure I should mention it because this is an American site and I know that certain goods for women are not forthrightly advertised in America and there seems to be some sort of taboo, but if it were just 'bleeding', there might be an ordinary explanation. Might it not be a fairly regular occurrence for a woman who was 'bleeding' heavily to go to the bathroom?

Mind you, this interpretation isn't out of the question with the poem as it is, with 'spurts blood', now that it occurs to me. If I was younger, it would've occurred to me immediately, I'm sure, as would've the further possibility of a miscarriage taking place.

There are many interpretations possible for this poem, it seems!

OMG... I think that's it, though: the traditional associative sequence, as explained by Hoshinaga Fumio in relation to his 'squid peppermint' haiku is not interrupted/ cut after all!

Atom - has a nucleus: Heart - is inside the body structure, is a kind of nucleus: Mother - has a womb, another kind of nucleus: prefab bathroom - is a womb-like space: where the nucleus of a mother's womb, the foetus, is being expelled.

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else, but it seems to me not to be at all radical, but to follow the kinds of association links of which renku/ renga are made, as well as the traditional Japanese song that Hoshinaga Fumio mentions. So, do we have, in this haiku, what could be seen to be a condensed renku? (a modern one, since though Basho revitalized the renga to haikai-no-renga, I doubt that 'female' subjects such as miscarriage are traditional) but the particular techniques of association used for renku are something that Japanese people are so used to, are familiar with even through children's songs, that they come naturally.

I now have a lot more interest in and respect for this haiku! Excuse me whilst I recover.

O, dear...I think now that Carlos's 'decalf' was not a typo.


- Lorin

[Don Baird]

Yes, Lorin.  This is what I'm hinting at.  I'm glad you caught it and went ahead and posted it!  It seems there is an indication that it is "she is bleeding in the prefab bathroom"...... I think it is referencing something along that line.  Spurt bloods does seem out of character for the poem ... imho.

I'm leaning toward miscarriage.

Thanks for reading my mind and being brave enough to post it!   ;)

Don

[eluckring]

according to my Random House Webster's dictionary

nagasu ( 流す)
1. drain, pour, flush
2. shed (tears)
3. wash away

yes, certainly seems to me something is being expelled....( why David went to "spurt")

yes, yes, yes..... an early miscarriage ( could even be an abortion)
and perhaps the pregnancy having some association to that bar as well as the word associations  themselves??

or
it is at least a heavy period
such a private moment that can be quite unsettling especially when it comes on suddenly, a type of hemorrhaging really, humbling

nagasu--sounds like the perfect word in Japanese--one that suggests, but does not nail down a specific meaning

and yeah, that birth/death thing that has been there since the beginning for me is still there .

I'm liking the poem much better again!

[Don Baird]

There's a lot of layers, apparently, with the word nagasu.  And, it fits the bill perfectly if we look at miscarriage or some female problem.  As you've pointed out, drain, pour, flush, shed (like tears) and to wash away.  That's an immense amount of resonance from this one word.  It sure opens the piece up for further discussion, however.

again:

atom heart mother bleeding in the prefab bathroom

or

atom heart mother in the prefab bathroom bleeding

... miscarriage ... ?

Don

[Lorin]

It has to be a miscarriage (whether spontaneous or induced)

All of the clues are in the association sequence:

Atom - has a nucleus: Heart - is inside the body structure, is a kind of nucleus: Mother - has a womb, another kind of nucleus: prefab bathroom - is a womb-like space-[what is inside this space?]: Mother, who has a womb is inside the womb-like space of the prefab bathroom, Mother is now a kind of nucleus [What is inside Mother's womb?]: and here the sequence project is aborted at an image of 'Mother spurting blood'.

Returning to an earlier speculation about cuts/kire:

Atom; Heart; Mother -cut- [Mother] in the prefab bathroom spurts blood

. . .but now with better understanding.

Don, I think something as literally descriptive as 'Mother ...spurts blood' is needed to distinguish what's happening from the regular monthly 'bleeding' or any other sort of bleeding. Also, it gives a more immediate sense of being an eye-witness to a shocking event, 'Mother spurting blood'. (and/or flushing it, given the location... there was a film I recall this image from, or was it a dream? never mind, I'm not sure)

What's still amazing me is the formality of the structure of this verse, the familiar game of a traditional Japanese association sequence hidden within the title of a Pink Floyd album (familiar to the Japanese, if we take Hoshinaga Fumio's word for it, and I think we should) which contrasts so sharply (and to me, oddly) with the subject. It is as if the miscarriage (which Ami Tanaka, conceivably, walked in on and witnessed as a child or young teenager, and if so, might've well experienced as traumatic) is contained in the formality of the verse structure.

I think that the context of the formal association game does hint at a childhood experience, in a way which is quite filmic. How often in the lead-up to a chilling moment in in a 'suspense' film there has been a superimposed soundtrack of children's voices chanting some innocent traditional rhyme.

Is the more important 'cut' here that of one between the structure and the content, I wonder? The 'containing' structure (based on association) verges on dissociation (psychological) in relation to the shockingly vivid image of 'Mother spurting blood' and I'd imagine this is not an accident, but part of the author's craft. Or, at the very least , there is dissonance between structure and context. (I'm not sure how to put this more precisely)

- Lorin

[David Lanoue]

This is fun!

Yes, I translated nagasu as "spurt" because there's a sense of violent flowing. All that blood in the bathroom could, indeed, suggest a miscarriage--something I hadn't thought about. Ami (a female poet, I should mention, since someone was wondering about this) alludes to an album that was released on the day of her birth. So, my first thought was that the "Mother" in the haiku is her own mother, giving birth to her. Her "own mother" could also be Mother Japan--which I associate with the sterile, ultra-modern and trendy "unit bath" or, as I translate it here, "pre-fab bathroom."

If the blood spurting is a miscarriage, the poet might be saying something contradictory and disturbing about her own birth.

原子心母ユニットバスで血を流す
genshi shinbo unitto basu de chi wo nagasu

Atom Heart Mother
in the prefab bathroom
spurts blood

As for the sytax (since Eve asked), the Genshi Shinbo (Atom Heart-Mother) is the subject, as I read it. This subject, located in the prefab bathroom, is spurting or gushing blood. At least that's my understanding of it. Maybe a Japanese person would see all kinds of different nuances and levels. But my question is: Does the poem work in English? Does it bring us somewhere? Is the journey worthwhile? And which haiku, "Atom Heart Mother" or "in my luggage" packs the bigger punch?

I won't vote since I'm the moderator. Let's see if anyone else weighs in between now and the deadline (Jan. 23rd).

[chibi575]

...

原子心母ユニットバスで血を流す
genshi shinbo unitto basu de chi wo nagasu

Atom Heart Mother
in the prefab bathroom
spurts blood

As for the sy[n]tax (since Eve asked), the Genshi Shinbo (Atom Heart-Mother) is the subject, as I read it. This subject, located in the prefab bathroom, is spurting or gushing blood. At least that's my understanding of it. Maybe a Japanese person would see all kinds of different nuances and levels. But my question is: Does the poem work in English? Does it bring us somewhere? Is the journey worthwhile? And which haiku, "Atom Heart Mother" or "in my luggage" packs the bigger punch?

I won't vote since I'm the moderator. Let's see if anyone else weighs in between now and the deadline (Jan. 23rd).

David, as to Japanese structure in the poem, 血を流す, is it not "blood spurts" を being the particle identifying  血 as the subject?  Of course, your answer will be my lesson in using particles... hee hee.

I think you've proposed more than one question:

Does the poem work in English?  I believe so if you mean by work that the poem can be "paraversed" from Japanese to English.

Does it bring us somewhere?  Yes.  I feel it brings us to many somewheres at several layers.

Is the journey worthwhile?  The worth of a journey is in the journey and sometimes may be yet determined by the other journeys it starts.

Which has the bigger punch (I paraphrase)?  The first is a MOTHER of a poem!  ;D

Thanx again David sensei.  I am having fun.

[Mark Harris]

Not sure I should mention it because this is an American site and I know that certain goods for women are not forthrightly advertised in America and there seems to be some sort of taboo, but if it were just 'bleeding', there might be an ordinary explanation. Might it not be a fairly regular occurrence for a woman who was 'bleeding' heavily to go to the bathroom?

Mind you, this interpretation isn't out of the question with the poem as it is, with 'spurts blood', now that it occurs to me. If I was younger, it would've occurred to me immediately, I'm sure, as would've the further possibility of a miscarriage taking place. --Lorin

such a private moment that can be quite unsettling especially when it comes on suddenly, a type of hemorrhaging really, humbling --Eve

The headline read, "ATOM HEART MOTHER NAMED," referring to a woman who had received a nuclear-powered pacemaker. --David

Atom Heart Mother
in the prefab bathroom
spurts blood


this haiku has the power to turn us inward, doesn't it? Lorin's and Eve's perspectives on female experience, Don's comments on structure, and David's insights into his translation, are illuminating, and reminders that my personal entry into the poem was, at least in part, through something I have in common with the woman named in that long-ago newspaper headline. Should she be a part of our reading? The headline makes her sound futuristic, almost powerful, and yet weak from her illness at the same time. Sort of like postwar Japan.

[Lorin]

Atom Heart Mother
in the prefab bathroom
spurts blood


this haiku has the power to turn us inward, doesn't it? Lorin's and Eve's perspectives on female experience, Don's comments on structure, and David's insights into his translation, are illuminating, and reminders that my personal entry into the poem was, at least in part, through something I have in common with the woman named in that long-ago newspaper headline. Should she be a part of our reading? The headline makes her sound futuristic, almost powerful, and yet weak from her illness at the same time. Sort of like postwar Japan.

You have a pacemaker, Mark? Surely not a nuclear-powered one, though? (Yes, this poem even drove me to read up about nuclear-powered pacemakers! In 2007, there were still 9 people in the USA who had them, and the pacemakers were still going strong)

Yes, in an effort to enter into and make sense of this haiku we apply all sorts of means. I even wonder what date the poem was written! It can get quite exhausting! In the end I keep returning to the random nature of the Pink Floyd album title, the random fact that Ami was born on the same day as the album release and that photograph of Lulubelle III on the (untitled) original cover.

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=656366

. . .and admit that I have as much of a clue as to what this poem is about (if, as I speculated earlier, it is about anything) as Lulubelle III would have. Maybe in the end it's a post-modern poem, music is about music and language is about language and that's all there is. Random words can be placed together and seem to be significant, can generate many paths of speculation and association.

http://cgi.ebay.com/PINK-FLOYD-ATOM-HEART-MOTHER-JAPAN-CD-CP32-W-Obi-RARE_W0QQitemZ120450924224QQcategoryZ307QQcmdZViewItem

"If Japan did not exist, Barthes would have had to invent it -- not that Japan does exist in Empire of Signs, for Barthes is careful to point out that he is not analyzing the real Japan but rather one of his own devising. In this fictive Japan, there is no terrible innerness as in the West, no soul, no God, no fate, no ego, no grandeur, no metaphysics, no 'promotional fever' and finally no meaning. . . . For Barthes Japan is a test, a challenge to think the unthinkable, a place where meaning is finally banished."

- Edmund White, The New York Times Book Review (quoted here from the back cover blurb of Roland Barthes' Empire of Signs

"So what?", says Lulubelle III


- Lorin