About
This is a forum for discussions of Japanese Modernist and contemporary poetry and poetics, as well as all other related interests. It features articles and essays on Japanese poetry, translations, book reviews, discussions of translation theory and method, and writing on other contemporary Japanese arts. The title, New Modernism, also refers to the need to go back to the Modernists to find new material for future explorations now that Postmodernism is over. The importance of translation as a means to a poetics in Modernism, as well as the tendency to create cultural hybrids is especially important here.
Eric Selland is a poet and translator who divides his time between San Francisco and Tokyo. His translations of Modernist and contemporary Japanese poets have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. He has also published articles on Japanese Modernist poetry and translation theory. He is the author of The Condition of Music (Sink Press, 2000), Inventions (Seeing Eye Books, 2007), and Still Lifes (Hank’s Original Loose Gravel Press, 2011). Eric is currently editing an anthology of 20th century Japanese Modernist and avant-garde poetry with poet/translator Sawako Nakayasu.
October 6, 2011 at 3:01 pm |
Eric, this blog is fascinating and very welcome. I’ve long been interested in Japanese modernist literature and culture–I was at one time training to teach it, but my life took a journalistic/poetic turn. (Miriam Silverberg was a dear friend from college days.)
I appreciate in particular being introduced to Hiraide Takashi, and your analysis of his debts to both Blanchot and Benjamin is very illuminating. I have always resonated with the récit-approach to poetic writing–the prose “field” that welcomes anything and elides generic boundaries–and it is wonderful to experience such a subtle practitioner as Hiraide.
Jon Spayde
October 6, 2011 at 4:33 pm |
Thanks Jon. It’s nice to hear from you. I haven’t been able to get much new up lately, but I owe book reviews to a number of people, including Myriam Sas who you also may know. Her new book on postwar Japanese performance is terrific. As for Hiraide, there is a book available on New Directions translated by Sawako Nakayasu. This is The Fighting Spirit of the Walnut, which I believe I’ve commented on in the past (take a look through older posts). I’ll try to get more information up in the coming months but I’ve just been flooded with translation work (the non-poetic kind). By the way, the internet based magazine Big Bridge will be having a special contemporary Japanese poetry issue in the near future. Some translations I did of Takagai Hiroya and Sekiguchi Ryoko will be included (I think there’ll be ten poets in all).
Well, thanks again, and keep in touch!
Eric
January 2, 2012 at 8:45 pm |
Dear Eric,
Thank you for this fascinating blog. I am starting a doctoral thesis at the moment on the publication of post-war Japanese poetry in the UK and am interviewing various involved parties. I would really like to talk to you in more detail about modern Japanese poetry and its translation/publication if you have the time. I will give my e-mail address below, please do contact me if you can.
Best wishes,
Andy
January 4, 2012 at 10:55 am |
Dear Eric,
Thank you for putting up this very useful and informative blog. I’m currently starting a doctoral thesis that relates to the translation of modern Japanese poetry in the UK. It would be great to get in touch with you about your translation work and your thoughts on modern/contemporary Japanese poetry. I’ve left my email below, please do get in touch.
Best wishes,
Andy
January 4, 2012 at 10:56 am |
Apologies for double-post, I thought the first one hadn’t worked!
October 28, 2012 at 8:07 am |
Eric – I stumbled across your blog as I search for some contemporary Japanese poetry to use in conjunction with Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen, which I am teaching in my junior literature course at the Shanghai American School. Would you be able to recommend 4-7 poems that might be: 1) a good starting place for Japanese poetry and 2) accessible to high school students? Thanks!
October 28, 2012 at 8:27 am |
Dear Michael,
I’ll try and think of something. I do mostly avant-garde myself, which might be jumping off the deep end for high school students, unless they are a group that is especially open to new things and willing to thing in a non-linear fashion. I also have a smattering of Ryoichi Wago’s twitter poems sent from Fukushima after the nuclear disaster. I think a number of people have translated selections from that including Jeremy Angles. There is also another website which introduces modern Japanese poetry (I might have a link here but not sure). Perhaps switching to regular e-mail or connecting on Facebook would make communication easier than this, and I can introduce you to some other translators that way as well.
October 31, 2012 at 12:46 am
Thanks Eric. Yeah, for these high schoolers, they will be more successful with some more ‘traditional’ modern poetry vs. the avant-garde stuff. But, they are willing to look at texts in new ways, so if some of the poetry you work with you think might be great for 16 year olds to read, let’s do it. Let’s continue via email. Thanks!