A little bit of Culture...  Poetry from soc.culture.irish

Poetry Worldwide  (all else....)

Posted by K E Dennis
on:    27 February 2000

....a few years ago the following [poem] & its English translation appeared on a "Poetry In Motion" sign in the NYC subway [hi, Tony D!].

I’ve forgotten the name of this style of orthography*, in which the Latin alphabet is used to represent Japanese sounds, but it was the first time I had seen [the] sound structure in its original language.  & I was so struck, I rode several stations past my stop while frantically scribbling it onto the margins of the NY Times...

Now, IMHO, the translation is in & of itself quite captivating, no matter the tone - wistful, angry, teasing - in which you read it. But just look at the internal structure of that original! 

       [*the script is called  romaji ]                                        [notes on the structure of Komu to yú mo]

Komu to yú mo
Ótomo no Sakanoue [Japan, 8th c.]

 

One Hundred Poems from the Japanese
trans., Kenneth Rexroth
New York: New Directions Publishing, 1955

komu to yú mo
kono toki aru wo
koji to yú wo
komu to wa mataji
koji to yú mono wo

You say, "I will come,"
& you do not come.
Now you say, "I will not come,"
so I shall expect you.
Have I learned to understand you?

--- The End ---

Questions? Comments? -K. E. Dennis

Poetry Worldwide  (all else....)

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