<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 23px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><i>The Essence of</i></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 34px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times">MODERN HAIKU</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 20px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><i>300 Poems by Seishi Yamaguchi</i></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 8px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times" style="font-size: 8px; "><i style="font-size: 8px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" style="font-size: 8px; "></i></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 10px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times" size="5" style="font-size: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; "><a href="http://www.rolomail.com/cgi-bin/sanadd.pl?104">http://www.rolomail.com/cgi-bin/sanadd.pl?104</a></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 28px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">橇行や</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">Kyôkô ya</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">Journeying by sleigh -</font></div></div></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">氷下魚の穴に</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">komai no ana ni</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">a hole cut for ice fishing</font></div></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">海溢る</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">umi afuru</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 19px; ">brimming with the sea.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 22px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 19px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 14px; ">Composed 1927.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3" style="font-size: 14px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 14px; ">Recalling Sakhalin. People were fishing through holes in the ice in Ôdomari, and I, a middle school student, went to watch. When a sleigh went by, the ice buckled, and water brimmed from one of the holes in the ice.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 14px; ">Season Word: <i>komai</i>, "fish commonly caught under ice." Winter, animals.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3" style="font-size: 14px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3" style="font-size: 14px; ">Vocabulary:</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 14px; "> • <i>kyôkô</i> is written with kanji for "sleigh" (橇, by itself read <i>sori</i>) and "go" for a word meaning "going/traveling by sleigh." Though describing an action, it functions as a noun.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 14px; "> • strictly speaking, <i>komai</i> is the name for a kind of cod, but since it's written with kanji meaning "ice" + "under" + "fish," it can be thought of as a generic name for any fish that is fished through holes in the ice.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font face="Times" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; font-size: 14px; "> • <i>afuru</i> is the classical form of modern <i>afureru</i>, "overflow/brim over/flood." The last line is equivalent to <i>umi ga afureru</i> in modern Japanese, "the sea brims over."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 21px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3" style="font-size: 14px; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3" style="font-size: 11px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; ">Published by Mangajin, only a few dozen copies remain in print. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; "> </span></span><i style="font-size: 12px; ">T</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-size: 12px; ">ranslated by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; ">A book of poetry from Mangajin. Breaking free from centuries of poetry limited to nature themes, the late Seishi Yamaguchi added modern touches while retaining the elegant beauty of the classics. Presented in both the original Japanese and in English translation, this collection has appeal for students of Japanese language and culture as well as haiku lovers everywhere.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; ">Yamaguchi Seishi is a poet who broke like a cyclone on the world of the new haiku founded by Shiki and Kyoshi. That fact has been made abundantly clear by the authors of this book. His subjects are fresh. His style is organized and plastic. The feeling of his poetic expression is above all modern. For these reasons, lovers of haiku and lovers of art everywhere would find themselves in tune with Seishi's haiku.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">n 1988 Fujiwara Noboru published <i>A Selection from the Poems of Seishi</i>, which introduced 88 poems, with the poet's notes, in English translation. We are now given 300 of the poems in English, all selected and annotated by the poet valuable aids in the comprehension of the poems, needless to say.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Of course, the two distinguishing features of the haiku are its brevity and the tight music of its seventeen sounds. A little longer and it becomes verbose; a little shorter and it loses its rhythm.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Consequently, the principal problem of translating haiku comes down to a matter of the paucity of vowels, and thus syllables, in the English word. When one attempts to translate into seventeen English syllables, one is apt to be forced to conflate the meaning of the Japanese</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">R. H. Blyth has suggested a meter of alternating feet in a 2-3-2 rhythm, which seems to satisfy the rhythmic requirements of speakers of English. Poets in Europe and the United States, however, often compose in syllabic patterns close to those of the Japanese, and even the renowned English poet James Kirkup goes on writing poems with the 5-7-5 beat.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Let us remember, too, that nowadays musicians in Europe and the United States are being drawn to the subtle rhythms of <i>gagaku</i> and the <i>shakuhachi</i>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">With all this in mind, the translation of haiku into English poems of seventeen syllables might be said to have a startlingly new quality.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Thus the work of Kodaira Takashi and Alfred H. Marks seems to me to have been very successful. The translation of the poems and of the annotations is faithful, and the rhythmic quality is sensitively reproduced.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Thanks to this book, therefore, the poems of Yamaguchi Seishi of which Japanese are so proud can be properly appreciated abroad. I anticipate that this will do much for the understanding of haiku in general.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: right; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">UCHIDA SONO</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: right; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">President, Haiku International Association</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: right; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: right; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">AVAILABLE AT ROLOMAIL.COM</div><div style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13px; "><a href="http://www.rolomail.com/cgi-bin/sanadd.pl?104">http://www.rolomail.com/cgi-bin/sanadd.pl?104</a></span></div><div style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: right; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"A wonderful book! For the first time western haiku poets have a chance to read, study, and savor a comprehensive collection of haiku by a major Japanese poet..." <b>Elizabeth Searle Lamb</b>, Former Editor, Frogpond</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"Seishi [is] the foremost elder haiku poet now writing..." <b>James Kirkup</b>, President, British Haiku Society</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"For any serious student of haiku, this is an invaluable text." <b>L. A. Davidson</b>, Charter Member, Haiku Society of America</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"... gives us some of the best poems written in any verse form." <b>Makoto Ueda</b>, Dept. of Asian Languages, Stanford University</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial"><b>TAKASHI KODAIRA</b> is professor of American Literature at Yokohama City University in Japan.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial"><b>ALFRED H. MARKS</b> is professor emeritus of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz.</font></div></div></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></font></div>
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