Sea Shell Game 5

[John McManus]

Here is a brand new Seashell game. I hope the following poems will spark a good bit of conversation, please do chime in with your thoughts and preferences.

under the clouds of imaginary numbers
fighting silently
against a monster

Ban'ya Natsuishi. Translated by Ban'ya Natsusihi and Jim Kacian.


under the nitrogen blue sky
the white horse
of my life

Patrick Sweeney

[Vida]

under the clouds of imaginary numbers
fighting silently
against a monster

Ban'ya Natsuishi. Translated by Ban'ya Natsusihi and Jim Kacian.


under the nitrogen blue sky
the white horse
of my life

Patrick Sweeney

Hi John,

Both poems are so intriguing that I have been returning many times here, but at the end my vote goes for Ban'ya Natsuishi.

under the clouds of imaginary numbers
fighting silently
against a monster



I suspect it has something to do with the characters of Hellsing- some are monsters, some humans, and some turn into a "a set of imaginary numbers", existing on some level but not in reality. However I am not into manga and I cannot comment from this point of view.

That would be really interesting though! Maybe someone else knows more about it. For the moment, I could imagine my son in a few years- reading a manga, instead of doing a big math homework :))

What made me vote for the haiku is the comparison of two non-real things: imaginary numbers and monsters. They are both existing only in their relationship with the reality (as we know it). Take the reality out and the non-real things also cease to be.  Also I really liked the idea that we need our monsters as we need these imaginary numbers in math.

Wonderful choice of poems, John. I enjoyed them both!

Best,
VIda

[Gabi Greve]

under the clouds of imaginary numbers
fighting silently
against a monster

Ban'ya Natsuishi. Translated by Ban'ya Natsusihi and Jim Kacian.

Do you have the Japanese for this one?
I was wondering if Natsuishi sensei wrote 5 7 5 or some other meter, as the translation suggests?
Gabi

[John McManus]

Hi Vida and Gabi, thanks for posting. I was beginning to worry!

Vida, your vote has been noted, thanks again!

Gabi, I can't get the Japanese version for you at the moment, but I'll post it as soon as I can. I hope that's alright.

warmest,
John

[Vida]

I may be very wrong in my interpretation of this haiku. Here's what I found "translating" it back and forth with google,

No. arrow summer stone monster fight in silence under the clouds of imaginary


http://s.webry.info/sp/banyahaiku.at.webry.info/201110/article_3.html

[Gabi Greve]

虚数の雨雲の下黙々と怪物と戦う　　
夏石番矢

kyosuu no amagumo no shita
mokumoku to kaibutsu to tatakau

This seems all to be about the problems of Fukushima and the misleasding information given in the Japanese media. It was his reaction to an information of the first of october (last year), when they announced that the levels of radioactivity are falling even more.

.
Thanks a lot for introducing this poem.
Gabi

[Chase Gagnon]

under the nitrogen blue sky
the white horse
of my life

Patrick Sweeney

I found this ku to be much better, but i'm not a huge fan of translated haiku. they seem to loose something through translation.

[Seaview (Marion Clarke)]

I think I like Patrick Sweeney's best, John. It made me think of life on this planet being as transient as a wave breaking on the shore under a vast blue sky.

marion

[whitedove]

under the clouds of imaginary numbers
fighting silently
against a monster

I like this one better although initially it was because of how I related it to my personal experience.  I had always been abysmal in mathematics, but several years ago I took a course in college algebra and surprised myself by making an  A.  I remember being fascinated by imaginary numbers and fighting the monster of fear of mathematics.  But to me, the poem spoke of a battle between good and evil.  Now that I have read the explaination about the reports of radioactivity, I still feel some of that sense even though the explaination casts a vastly different light on the poem.  I like Ban'ya's poem better because it speaks to me on an intuitive level.  Rebecca Drouilhet

[sabine]

 I like the imaginary numbers better...although at first glance and because of the word "imaginary" it seems more abstract,  I found it more immediate. I like "the white horse of my life " as an image/symbol but I think it would have been more effective as a one-liner. The dangling "of my life" feels too weighty reminiscent of love song cliches perhaps.

[sabine]

Is one allowed to waffle in the Sea Shell Game? Now that I think more about it, I like the Sweeney poem more. If it were a one-liner, it would be too congruent with, or evocative of the ephemera/wave theme of the poem. "of my life" stands on its own to anchor the gaseous nitrogen and the galloping horse...the result is a paradox, a "big thought" in a small poem. The Natsuishi poem is all-ephemera (as Vida suggested), and although more immediate, does seem to slip from the mind as do its subjects.  Today, I vote for the one that stays.

Thanks, John. I've learned something here.

[Betty Shropshire]

Coming in late.  Since this game is still open, I wanted to cast my vote for Patrick Sweeney's alchemical verse.  Melding the chemical ball and stick coloration of nitrogen (sky blue) in a protein molecule with an image of a mythical white horse...perhaps a hill cut stick figure outline of a horse that can be seen from the sky....shows us his positive life force....is pure alchemy for me.   I love it.

[saore]

My choice is for the imaginary numbers haiku.

It feels like a meta-poetic poem like the imagist Ezra Pound. 


under the clouds of imaginary numbers
fighting silently
against a monster



Sergio