Dear Friends, Here’s a talk I gave in May as part of a series on Zen poetry. In this talk I share the last expressions of haiku poets, particularly Bashō and Buson. I also suggest that we all take up poeming as a regular practice. Do you poem? Or do you not? Either way, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Oh wow, Sal, your talk actually gave me goosebumps, and I want to respond immediately, although what I have to add is a zillion miles from the actual topic, but might be of interest, as a sidelight throwing what you discussed into starker contrast: on the subject of death poems, I was reminded of what is known as "Bede's Death Song", allegedly composed by the English Christian monk and scholar Bede (aka Saint Bede, aka The Venerable Bede) in the year 735:
Fore thaem neidfaerae ‖ naenig uuiurthit
thoncsnotturra, ‖ than him tharf sie
to ymbhycggannae ‖ aer his hiniongae
huaet his gastae ‖ godaes aeththa yflaes
aefter deothdaege ‖ doemid uueorthae.
There are two translations into modern English here:
I don't want to go into the details (which are worth looking into, however, even if only for the delights of Old English vocabulary - thoncsnotturra!), but the main thing is how strikingly this poem, which preaches to those left alive, differs from the poems discussed in your talk with their lightness and humour and attentiveness! An entirely different tradition, of course, but in this case somehow so different as to give weight to the doubts surrounding the poem's authorship. Perhaps a zealous scribe or attendant coughed up these lines and helped them to fame by attributing them to the much-revered dead man? I derive this idea from Ursula K. Le Guin's amazing translation of the Tao Te Ching, in which she repeatedly cuts out lines or even whole stanzas that she says must have been added at a later date by scribes and copyists because, as rather dull or moralizing elements, they are hugely, almost insultingly incongruous.
On the subject of translation, one of the goosebump-inducing moments in the talk was when you read the second translation of the poem with the withered field and I realized it before you said it. This also reminded me of Eliot Weinberger's great book "Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei" which I very much recommend to anyone interested in translating poetry.
And finally, the idea of fever dreams "scouring on through exhausted fields" is truly terrifying, a really strong evocation of the horrors of the nightmare, something that, for me at least, the other version with "hovering" doesn't have at all.
So much to think about here! Thank you so much Sal!
I’ve read/enjoyed the Eliot Weinberger, but a few years back. I’ll find it again.
This all reminds me of the pleasures & expansions of translating from languages you don’t know. And at the same time the difficulty of really knowing what was in ancient texts.
Did you think “scouring” was better than hovering? I’ll see if i can find the original..,,
I've had a brief look, too, and found that the word in question, かけ廻る (kakemeguru), means to run or rush about, so actually neither hover nor scour. Because there are so many levels of meaning in the poem, I don't think "better" is really much of a relevant category here, it was just that for me personally, the image of a fever dream scouring barren terrain felt nightmarish, I was seeing some kind of robotic ploughing machine churning through exhausted soil, as a correlate for environmental destruction, obviously not at all what Basho was talking about, but very much what's in my mind right now.
Hmm yes, it looks like the root kanji/character has the meaning of revolving, and this form inflects it towards running around & bustling, all of which shifts the feeling for me towards a sense of repeating action and intensity (not so hovery). Maybe the hovering gives it a bit of ghost energy or haunting.
I can’t wait to use all of this in the next oracular writing session!!!
Yes!
I poem. Love this Sal!
Thank you, Pamela. Of course you poem!
Fascinating. Thank you.
Thanks for reading, Bobby!
Oh wow, Sal, your talk actually gave me goosebumps, and I want to respond immediately, although what I have to add is a zillion miles from the actual topic, but might be of interest, as a sidelight throwing what you discussed into starker contrast: on the subject of death poems, I was reminded of what is known as "Bede's Death Song", allegedly composed by the English Christian monk and scholar Bede (aka Saint Bede, aka The Venerable Bede) in the year 735:
Fore thaem neidfaerae ‖ naenig uuiurthit
thoncsnotturra, ‖ than him tharf sie
to ymbhycggannae ‖ aer his hiniongae
huaet his gastae ‖ godaes aeththa yflaes
aefter deothdaege ‖ doemid uueorthae.
There are two translations into modern English here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede%27s_Death_Song
I don't want to go into the details (which are worth looking into, however, even if only for the delights of Old English vocabulary - thoncsnotturra!), but the main thing is how strikingly this poem, which preaches to those left alive, differs from the poems discussed in your talk with their lightness and humour and attentiveness! An entirely different tradition, of course, but in this case somehow so different as to give weight to the doubts surrounding the poem's authorship. Perhaps a zealous scribe or attendant coughed up these lines and helped them to fame by attributing them to the much-revered dead man? I derive this idea from Ursula K. Le Guin's amazing translation of the Tao Te Ching, in which she repeatedly cuts out lines or even whole stanzas that she says must have been added at a later date by scribes and copyists because, as rather dull or moralizing elements, they are hugely, almost insultingly incongruous.
On the subject of translation, one of the goosebump-inducing moments in the talk was when you read the second translation of the poem with the withered field and I realized it before you said it. This also reminded me of Eliot Weinberger's great book "Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei" which I very much recommend to anyone interested in translating poetry.
And finally, the idea of fever dreams "scouring on through exhausted fields" is truly terrifying, a really strong evocation of the horrors of the nightmare, something that, for me at least, the other version with "hovering" doesn't have at all.
So much to think about here! Thank you so much Sal!
Thoncsnotturra! What a word!
I’ve read/enjoyed the Eliot Weinberger, but a few years back. I’ll find it again.
This all reminds me of the pleasures & expansions of translating from languages you don’t know. And at the same time the difficulty of really knowing what was in ancient texts.
Did you think “scouring” was better than hovering? I’ll see if i can find the original..,,
I've had a brief look, too, and found that the word in question, かけ廻る (kakemeguru), means to run or rush about, so actually neither hover nor scour. Because there are so many levels of meaning in the poem, I don't think "better" is really much of a relevant category here, it was just that for me personally, the image of a fever dream scouring barren terrain felt nightmarish, I was seeing some kind of robotic ploughing machine churning through exhausted soil, as a correlate for environmental destruction, obviously not at all what Basho was talking about, but very much what's in my mind right now.
Hmm yes, it looks like the root kanji/character has the meaning of revolving, and this form inflects it towards running around & bustling, all of which shifts the feeling for me towards a sense of repeating action and intensity (not so hovery). Maybe the hovering gives it a bit of ghost energy or haunting.
I found these further angles as well:
http://www.carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/text/view/45
https://matsuobashohaiku.home.blog/2019/10/28/matsuo-bashos-death-haiku/