Poetcrit July-December 2024 Translation to the Japanese Fixed-Form Poetry-Rika Inami

このたび、インドの学術詩誌『Petcrit July-December 2024』に私の詩歌の翻訳についての論説が掲載されました。以下が掲載されたものです。

―Translation to the Japanese Fixed-Form Poetry:

All the way to  "The SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST/ 白濁" ( 2021) ―

All Rights Reserved ©2024 Rika Inami

 

I started translating English tanka and English haiku into Japanese in earnest, other than my own work, when Prof. Ram Krishna Singh, a leading contemporary poet in India, asked me to do so.

First, in the summer of 2018, Mr. Hidenori Hiruta, Chief Director of the Akita International Haiku Network, asked me to translate 20 pieces of tanka poetry by Prof. Singh, which I accepted.

In those days, my translation from English tanka to Japanese tanka was not proficient, and while I would have loved to translate them into Japanese fixed-form tanka if I could have, I was not able to achieve that goal.

Prof. Singh's tanka poems were nonetheless popular with readers.

His poems are filled with humanity itself.

I think that we humans are more spiritual, in other words, more conscious creatures than any other creatures on this planet. This spirituality evokes worship and longing for something greater than ourselves, in other words, for God, for Mother Nature. At the same time, humans also have a physical body, a nature-derived physical form that is also an uncontrollable part of consciousness. Furthermore, this physical existence of human beings is also an existence that must be subject to various restrictions in order to survive and live. I interpret Prof. Singh's poem as born out of this yearning for a divine existence, or in other words, the entanglement and conflict between a sublime free existence and a physical existence that is subject to various restrictions on this planet.

His poems were also very popular in Japanese translation, perhaps because he skillfully expressed our human joys, sorrows, and ironies in his poems, and they resonated with readers.

Sublime, social, sexy, the variety of words and poetry in his poems are about us, human existence itself.

 

From "The SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST/ 白濁" by Ram Krishna Singh

※     In the book, English tanka poems were translated into Japanese fixed-form ones by Rika Inami.

 

I'm not alone

waking up in the grave―

angels await

my rise to eternity

my love's union again

 

墓中（おくつき）に

一人目覚めず―

御使ひが

永遠（とわ）の昇華と

再和合俟つ

 

light switched off

love sliding on

window pane

moon too shies away

behind the bare tree

 

あかり消え

愛の喘ぎは

窓すべる

恥じらふ月は

裸木の陰

 

Two years later, in June 2020, Prof. Singh asked me to translate his 96 pieces of tanka and haiku collection again.

At that time, he asked me not only to translate but also to publish his book. I had been hoping to publish my book of tanka poetry for some time, and I thought about refusing his request, but he insisted, and I finally accepted his request. I started translating with some thoughts in my mind.

 

Around the time I had roughly translated all of Prof. Ram Krishna Singh's poems, there was a meeting of the Akita International Haiku Network. It was during the Covid-19 epidemic, so attendance was minimal. However, I attended the meeting and asked for advice on translating Prof. Singh's poems at the reception. Among them, Mr. Ben Grafström, assistant professor at Akita University, said,

 

"English haiku and tanka, if they are to be translated, should be properly translated into the Japanese fixed-form poetry. Haiku is into 5-7-5 beats, and Tanka is into 5-7-5-7-7 beats."

 

For a moment, the keen tension ran through all attendances.

 

"It is challenging because English and Japanese have different linguistic structures. Japanese fixed-form poetry, such as haiku, senryu, and tanka, is based on moras, while English fixed-form poetry is based on syllables. Thus, the number of tones per word in English may not match the number of tones in Japanese, leading to an excess of mora," I frankly expressed my views.

 

"Yet, it could be done; think in tones and beats, not mora. Of course, there are cases where it just can't be done in Japanese fixed-form poetry. But it should be done!" Mr. Grafström said.

 

His firm advice prompted us to straighten up.

However, I still had difficulty translating English fixed-form poetry into Japanese fixed-form poetry.

 

-------     -----     -----     -----  -------     -----     -----     ----

 

Here, I delve a little deeper into the relations between moras and syllables.

 

Japanese Tanka is based on the standard form of 5-7-5-7-7, a total of 31 moras.
Japanese Haiku and Senryu are based on the standard form of 5-7-5, a total of 17 moras.
Most words used in these poems, except for particles and auxiliary verbs, comprise two or more moras. Therefore, in Japanese Tanka, Haiku, and Senryu, words with several sounds, such as independent nouns, verbs, and adjectives, are used in numbers within the 31 or 17 moras.
On the other hand, English Tanka's syllables are, in principle, divided into 5-7-5-7-7, a total of 31 syllables. In English Haiku and Senryu, the number of syllables is generally limited to 5-7-5, 17 syllables.
Now, here's the problem.
There are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other words in English, which, when translated into Japanese, consist of two or more moras, even if they are only one syllable.
For example, "rice ( kome 米 in Japanese)" and "think (omou 思うor kangaeru 考えるin Japanese)" are one syllable, but in Japanese, "ko-me" consists of two moras, "o-mo-u" three moras　and "ka-n-ga-e-ru" five moras.
This means that translating an English Tanka, Haiku, or Senryu into Japanese, even if only one syllable, will result in multiple moras in the Japanese kana script.
Therefore, although there may be the other way around, the Japanese translation of an English Haiku or Tanka may present many difficulties in fitting it into the 17 moras of a Haiku or 31 moras of a Tanka. Navigating the differences between English syllables and Japanese moras presents challenges in translating fixed-form poetry, as the structures and tonal elements do not always align.

 

-------     -----     -----     -----  -------     -----     -----     -----

 

Even though the translation had significant problems, Mr Ben Grafström made me decide to translate Prof. Ramkrishna Singh's poems into Japanese fixed-form poetry.

 

Fortunately, contemporary English haiku and tanka are becoming shorter than when they were first introduced to the West, with each syllable of a three or five-part composition becoming shorter, such as syllable compositions, 2-3-2 or 2-3-2-3-3.

Prof. Singh has a long history of haiku and tanka writing and has composed them not only with the initial syllable structures but also with shorter syllables. It also helped a notch when Mr Grafström said, "There are cases where it just can't be done in Japanese fixed-form poetry." In today's fast-paced world, new words are being created every day. I decided that the unavoidable poems were as they were and started refining the translations.

 

For 20 years, I have dedicated myself to composing tanka poems in the literary style as opposed to the modern Japanese style. The literary style closely adheres to Japanese archaic grammar, which differs significantly from contemporary Japanese grammar. Thanks to word conjugation and part-of-speech forms, Japanese archaic grammar allows sentences to be put together with fewer characters than in modern Japanese. In other words, there is an abbreviation effect. At its origin, the fixed-form structure of haiku and tanka was based on Japanese archaic grammar or literary style. Utilizing Japanese archaic grammar or literary style has played a pivotal role in my translation.

Thus, what I have completed and published, with a few exceptions, represents the translation into Japanese fixed-form poetry: "SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST/ 白濁."

 

From "SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST/ 白濁"

 

still lingers

her scent on the linens

drying in shade

 

リンネルの

残り香ほのり

日陰干し

 

greet the sun

on the terrace―

two roses

 

テラスにて

真日をむかふる

薔薇二輪

 

with foreign sound

I couldn't be a lasting poem―

provisional body

nude smell and white distrust

play freedom in mounds of cloud

 

異音にて

わが詩つづかず

うつしみに

白濁かげり

雲山にわぶ

 Poems by ( C)Ram Krishna Singh,    Translated by Rika Inami

 Article by All Rights Reserved ©2024 Rika Inami