ジャック・ケルアックの「アメリカン・ハイク」
Jack Kerouac reads “American Haiku”

一九〇四年に永井荷風が滞在した下宿先（米国ミシガン州カラマズー市）
Home in Kalamazoo, Michigan where NAGAI Kafū lived in 1904

Kalamazoo College just published an excellent article about the time that the famous Japanese writer NAGAI Kafū 永井荷風 spent in Kalamazoo in 1904 and 1905.

As Margaret DeRitter writes in this article, we at Western Michigan Univerisity’s Soga Japan Center are working to get a Michigan state historical marker placed in front of the house at 127 Elm Street, Kalamazoo, MI where he once lived.  It was there that he wrote the story “Atop the Hill”「岡の上」 included in his book American Stories 『あめりか物語』, soon after arriving in Kalamazoo in 1904.  (An English translation of this book was published in the year 2000.)

For a copy of a long article in Japanese about Kafū’s stay in Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo’s interest in Japan during that time, click here.  This article was first published in Mita bungaku 『三田文学』in 2006.

Writing in rope

Quipu (Khipu), Incan empire, approximately 1400-1532 CE
Museum of World Cultures, Göteborg, Sweden

I am fascinated with methods other than writing that people have retained ideas, text, and oral tradition.  One of the most fascinating is through the use of knots to record ideas and texts—a technique commonly used in the Inca empire and the South Pacific.  What is perhaps even more fascinating is that now, we are left with these intricately knotted ropes, and no one understands how they were meant to be read.  They just remain as mute artifacts, speaking in a language that no one can yet unravel. 

For more pictures of Quipu/Khipu from the Harvard Khipu Database, click here.
From about.com

Quipu (also spelled khipu or quipo) is the only known precolumbian writing system in South America—well, perhaps writing system isn’t quite the correct phrase. But quipus were clearly an information transmittal system. A quipu is essentially a group of wool and cotton strings tied together. The strings are dyed in many different colors, and they are joined together in many different manners and they have a wide variety and number of knots tied in them. Together the type of wool, the colors, the knots and the joins hold information that was once readable by several South American societies.

Quipus were a tool used by the Inca empire to communicate some kinds of information throughout the Inca Empire. When they arrived in 1532, the Spanish conquistadors viewed the quipu with great suspicion. Thousands of quipus were destroyed in the 16th century. […]

Quipus have not yet been deciphered, but some educated guesses about what they represent have been attempted. Certainly they were used for administrative tracking of tributes. They may have represented maps of the ceque system and/or they may have been mnemonic devices to help oral historians remember ancient legends.

Walter Benjamin at the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Reblogged from fiveoclockbot

The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) invites publishers to nominate translations published in 2011 for consideration for ALTA’s National Translation Award.  The translator selected for this award will receive a cash prize of $5,000.

To be eligible for the 2012 National Translation Award, the translation must be: 

• by an American citizen or U. S. resident
• from any language into English
• of a book-length work of fiction, poetry, drama or creative non-fiction (literary criticism, philosophy and biographies are not eligible),
• published anywhere in the world in 2011.

The deadline for receiving nominated books published in 2011 is March 15, 2012.  Please send a letter of nomination, four copies of the nominated book and a $50 entry fee for each nominated book ($30 if your press publishes no more than five titles per year) to:

American Literary Translators Association
ATTN:  National Translation Award
c/o The University of Texas at Dallas
800 W. Campbell Rd., JO51
Richardson, TX 75080-3021

If a translation is chosen to go on to the second round, publishers will be informed by June 1, 2012, that they will need to send a copy of the original-language text (a print version or e-mail attachment) by June 15, 2012.  Criteria for judging the award are (1) the importance of the translation and the literary significance of the original; and (2) the success of the translation in recreating the artistic force of the original.  Translations of contemporary works are preferred, but important retranslations or first-time translations of older works will also be considered if they make significant contributions to literature. 

The award supports ALTA’s goal of enhancing the status of literary translation, improving the quality of literary translating, and broadening the market for works in English translation.  The award-winning book and translator will be featured at the 35^th annual conference of the American Literary Translators Association in Rochester, NY, October 3-6, 2012.

Recent winners include such distinguished translators as Joel Agee (2007), Richard Wilbur (2008), Norm Shapiro (2009), Alex Zucker (2010), and Lisa Rose Bradford (2011).

The Joy of Books (Filmed in Toronto)

Ted Kooser: “Tattoo”
Reblogged from pilgrimsoulinme

ガイ・ララミー作：　広辞苑からできた龍安寺
Guy LARAMIE: Carving of the famous Zen rock garden Ryōanji in the pages of the Kōjien (Japanese dictionary)

There are more of Laramie’s book carvings at Visualnews and the artist’s own webpage.

Snowflakes are so architectural!

Snowflakes Under an Electron Microscope

If you’ve ever wondered what snowflakes truly look like, spend a few moments with these images from the Electron Microscopy Unit of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland.

At the EMU, where other areas of focus include crop pathogens and livestock diseases, “studying the structure of snow is vital to several areas of science as well as to activities that affect our daily lives.”

That’s no doubt true. But for the rest of us, snow’s structure is just beautiful. Enjoy!

Image: Electron and Confocal Microscopy Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

Benjamin Britten: A Ceremony of Carols (1942)
ベンジャミン・ブリテン・作曲　『キャロルの祭典』
Antioch Chamber Ensemble

One of Britten’s most lovely song cycles, based on medieval Latin and Old English poetry, and his first to use plainsong.  This music was written for a boy choir, and is an especially lovely musical evocation of boyhood, but here, it is given a great new performance by a talented group of young women.  Happy Holidays, friends. 

Franz Schubert: Der Tod und das Mädchen
(Death and the Maiden, 1817)

On this chilly evening in Michigan, I listened to this stunning recording of this song about a conversation between a young girl and death, who has come to claim her.  The bitterly cold voice of death at the end seemed to sink right into the marrow of my bones.  Here is a translation of the lyrics.

The Maiden:

Pass me by! Oh, pass me by!
Go, fierce man of bones!
I am still young! Go, rather,
And do not touch me.
And do not touch me.

Death:

Give me your hand, you beautiful and tender form!
I am a friend, and come not to punish.
Be of good cheer! I am not fierce,
Softly shall you sleep in my arms!

This remarkable old recording is by Marian Anderson, the gloriously talented African-American signer who became one of the great figures of the civil rights movement.  After capturing the imagination of Europe, where she was universally recognized as a great performer, she was planning a concert in Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. in 1939, when the Daughters of the American Revolution denied her access to the hall on the basis of her race.  This propelled her into the public spotlight and put her at the center of the national debate on race relations.  Eventually, she performed an outdoor concert, supported by Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, who loved her voice.  This concert was attended by 75,000 people and broadcast over the radio, giving her a far greater audience than ever before.  This story gives me goose bumps—a story of justice prevailing over ignorance. 

Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial

詩人の多田智満子が自分の詩「ひぐらし」を朗読します。
This film shows the Japanese poet TADA Chimako reading her poem “Higurashi” (Evening Cicadas).

I discovered this little video that my friend took when transferring my files over to a new computer.  It comes from a visit we made to her home in Kobe in 2001, just a short time before Tada Chimako was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually killed her.  In this touching, intimate poem, which she reads almost fifty years after its first publication, I cannot help but feel that Tada is somehow foreseeing her own imminent illness and death.  With Tada’s family’s permission, I have edited this film and posted it on Youtube as a tribute to this visionary Japanese poet.

For more of Tada’s poems in English translation, see Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako, trans. Jeffrey Angles (Univ. of California Press, 1990).

伊藤比呂美「わたしはあんじゅひめ子である」（抜粋）の朗読
青森県近代文学館、2011年
ITŌ Hiromi reading excerpts from “I Am Anjuhimeko” at the Aomori Prefectural Modern Literature Museum in 2011

This video shows Itō Hiromi, a giant of contemporary Japanese literature, reading from one of her most important works, the long narrative poem “I Am Anjuhimeko” in which she recreates a spirit possession recorded in northeastern Japan in 1931.  For a commentary, see below.  A translation of the entire work appears in my book of translations Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems of Hiromi Itō (Action Books, 2009). 

[Daughter] I am Anjuhimeko, three years old

In stories, it seems to me the person they refer to as father usually wasn’t around or was absence itself, no matter what story I happened to hear, the person called father would be dead in the house or out somewhere traveling or listening to whatever the stepmother was telling him to do, but in my house, there is someone called father, and he is intent on killing me, he is always doing his best to do so, but I don’t know what to do, I’ve had nothing but hardship since I was born

My father said this baby’s mouth is so monstrously big it seems to stretch all the way to her ears, her eyelids have folds in them, her face is flat, she’s got moles and birthmarks all over, her ears are big, big, big, something is wrong with her, it’s like she’s the freakish baby of some old priest, no way she’s mine, no way, I’ll call her Anjuhimeko, after those Anju—those lowly priests living in little cells for hermits—that’s what I’ll call her, and I’ll bury her in the sand, and if she can survive for three years then she can be my child

Something’s the matter with me, he says, look, I was born and here I am now, who cares if I’ve got one or two heads, who cares if I’ve got one or two hands, one too few or one too many? none of that really matters anyway, but that’s not what father says, he says let’s try burying her in the sand and waiting for three years, mother was willing to just go along with that, that was a big disappointment, but, well, here’s the problem, I’m just a newborn who can’t even see, and I can’t even utter a word to talk back, so I was wrapped in my mother’s silk underclothes and buried in a sandy spot near a river

Speaking of which, the sandy place near the river is the place where everybody buries their babies

To both the right and left of the place I was buried, there were so many buried babies that they jostled against each other, some were breathing, some weren’t, some had struggled partway out of the sand and then dried up, some had managed to escape all the way out of the sand and crawl away

Just crawl a little bit and there is a big bush, mosquitoes and flies sting any baby who tries to get there, but if they are able to escape from the fierce sun and take shelter from the rain and wind, they can pluck grass or leaves to eat, and if they manage to make it to the river, they can just go right in and live in the water, even though I was still buried in the sand, I watched the others around me, I watched the babies as they died, the ones who were already dead, and the ones who managed to survive and get away

***

[Mother] That’s right, how could anyone possibly have karma as bad as mine?

In only three years I gave birth to three children, but my husband buried one of the babies I’d gone to all the trouble to bear, he buried her in the sand, and now my swollen breasts are too much to bear, the holes in my breast where the milk should come out are plugged up, feverish, and swollen, just a simple touch and my breasts hurt so badly I think they’ll rip open, but between the pain in my breast and the sorrow at having my child buried, I spend every day weeping from dawn to dusk, and in the process of all this weeping, I have ruined my eyes, when that happened my husband said to me he didn’t want me in the house any longer because I’d gone blind, you’re the one who gave birth to the baby that wasn’t fit for anything except burial, no doubt you’ve got something deep and dark in your karmic past that made you give birth to that child and made you go blind, if you stay here, your deep, dark karma will rub off on me, so before that happens, do me the favor of dying or at least getting the hell out of the house, shit, I wish I could have buried you in the sand too, that’s what he said

Then, the next day, I check that the two children on my right and my left are still asleep, and I hold my breath as I quietly sneak out, I creep out of the house as quietly as I can, I’m going to dig a hole in the sand and hide myself in it, where was it that baby was buried? every day more and more people come to bury their babies so I don’t have any idea where mine is, I have no idea, but I dig a hole in the sand and bury myself in it anyway, and as I do so, the cries of the children reach my ears, I feel the faint warmth of the bodies of the buried babies, as long as I stay buried here in the sun, I can’t forget what has happened to me, if I’d known this was what fate had in store for me, I wouldn’t have obeyed my husband and buried the baby, that wasn’t a good idea, if things were all that bad, there must have been some other way, there must have been something I could’ve done, but no matter how much I regret it, no matter how much, no matter how much, no matter how much, it still isn’t enough, and I weep hysterically

When I look around, I see footprints in the sand, handprints in the sand, what are those? in them, I see the outlines of five toes and even the swirls of the prints of the individual toes, they’re the size of an adult’s feet – no, wait, here and there among the big prints are a couple of prints from a child’s foot, but there are only one or two of them, maybe those prints are Anjuhimeko’s, I see the patterns of fingers, several strands of hair, dried bloodstains, wet patches, many, many bodies of all different sorts, which of them belongs to her? I can’t say, does that handprint belong to her? could that footprint be hers? what about that fingerprint? is that strand of hair one of hers? when she was buried, the last thing I saw was her ear, a big, big, big ear, I could see the sand pouring into it so I took the hollow stalk of a reed and stuck it in the hole in her ear, and that was the last I saw of her, the hole was all filled in

Will my husband change his mind and come get me? what if he doesn’t? I don’t know, meanwhile, it seems as if I can hear the cries of the buried babies emerging here and there from the sandy patch of land, I don’t know, I feel what seems like the weight of a baby or something on my shoulders and on my back, it’s on my hands and arms, I feel as if I’m touching the children’s corpses, will my husband come or not? the stench of the babies reaches me every time the wind blows, I feel like the stench is accusing me every time the wind blows, if I’d known how things would work out, I would’ve gotten rid of the baby a long time ago when I was pregnant, that’s what I keep thinking to myself, but I didn’t and so that’s why these horrible things are happening to me, will my husband come or not? will he or won’t he? maybe he will and maybe he won’t, maybe he won’t, as I think these things to myself, the children accuse me and I feel their reproaches sink deep into my skin

And then I think that even if one was buried, two of my babies still remain, people keep telling me I should give up on her, I should give up on her, but even if I’ve given up on my buried baby, I still can’t give up on the husband who threw me out, buried here in the sand, all I can think about is whether or not he’ll suddenly change his mind and come take me away, that’s the only thing on my mind, dead child, go ahead and die, die, don’t look back, I want to live […]

***

[Daughter] Stories go fast in the telling, three years later, my father says, it’s the third anniversary of the day I buried Anjuhimeko, why don’t I try digging her up to see if she’s dead or alive?

And when he digs me up, here I am, I’m not dead, I haven’t dried up, I just warmed myself in the sand, a growing, a laughing, living body

Mother stuck the hollow stalk of a reed in the hole in my ear to mark where I was, so morning and night, I would suck the dew through the tiny, tiny, tiny hole in the stalk, and so I grew, a laughing, living body

That’s right, they dig me up and here I am, I’m not dead, I haven’t dried up, I just warmed myself in the sand, a growing, laughing, living body, mother stuck a stalk in the hole in my ear to mark me, morning and night I would suck the dew through the tiny, tiny, tiny hole, and here I am, a growing, laughing, living body, a growing, laughing living body, a growing, laughing, living body, that is what I am, that is who I am!

Many commentators have described Itō’s poems as “shamanistic,” in that they seem to channel voices that speak in stark, sometimes startling ways about the subjectivity and experiences of women. The long narrative poem I am Anjuhimeko is one of her most important works in this “shamanistic” style.  In fact, in her public readings of this poem, she plays the part of a shamaness, creating the illusion that she is possessed by a spirit.  While reciting it, she raps on a drum, table, or the floor to punctuate the narrative and draw attention to the rhythms embedded in the text. 

In medieval Japan, there emerged a kind of popular entertainment known as sekkyō-bushi—stories that itinerant storytellers would recite and sing to musical accompaniment.  The most famous sekkyō-bushi is the tale of “Sanshō the Steward” (Sanshō dayū).  (Western audiences might know this story through a modern retellings by the novelist Mori Ōgai or the film adaptation by the celebrated director Mizoguchi Kenji.)  In the process of exploring the world of sekkyō-bushi and Japanese folklore, Itō came across an alternative version of this story recorded in Tsugaru, northeastern Japan, the same region where Itō performed this reading in 2011. In August 1931, the anthropologist Takeuchi Nagao recorded an account of spirit possession from a medium named Sakuraba Sue.  She had learned the text from her predecessors, yet when the text was performed, it appeared to be the spontaneously generated speech of a spirit possessing her. Because the story was narrated in the first person and in the past tense, it gave listeners the distinct impression that it was being told by a spirit speaking from beyond the grave.

Mainstream versions of the “Sanshō the Bailiff” describe the tale of a brother and sister separated from their parents.  This separation ends unhappily when the children are torn from their parents and sold into slavery.  In the end, the daughter sacrifices her life so that her brother can escape to freedom; however, in the alternative version recorded among in rural northeastern Japan, the story focuses exclusively on the daughter, who does not sacrifice herself but instead struggles toward freedom.  The excerpt that Itō is reading here comes from the opening passages of the text, in which the daughter-spirit Anjuhimeko describes her own birth and surviving her parents’ attempts to kill her. The story then switches to the voice of her mother as a spirit, who describes her suffering at having to destroy her own child, before returning to the voice of the daughter, who has survived. 

In Itō’s hands, the story from the spirit possession becomes a powerful modern myth of healing and self-discovery.  Even when experiencing pain and punishment, the body continues to want to survive.  Although tortured, battered, and bruised, there is a part within the body and within the human psyche that insists upon its own existence—a body that insists on growing, laughing, and living.