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Eric Hoffman Sumitaku Kenshin: A Small Anthology and a Brief Biography In the annals of modern haiku, the name Sumitaku Kenshin (住宅顕信) (1961-1987) is, regrettably, familiar only to Japanese readers. Such is his popularity in his native country that his haiku is preserved in monuments—a not uncommon form of reverence toward poets in Japan—and in a variety of media. Most recently, his life and poetry was the subject of a major motion picture that received little to no distribution outside of Japan. Given the rather regional and fragmented nature of the Japanese publishing world, where it is difficult for authors to achieve nation-wide renown, Kenshin’s success, rare and significant as it is, has yet to achieve the same level of exposure outside of Japan as his stylistically similar predecessors and contemporaries, for example Taneda Santōka (1882-1940), and Ozaki Hōsai (1885-1926), particularly the latter’s, which has deeply influenced Kenshin’s jiyuritsu, or “free verse” haiku—haiku that does not contain a kigo or season word, nor adhere to the 5-7-5 mora structure. The reasons for this oversight are, on the surface, somewhat difficult to explain, given that translations of his work in English, French, and Hungarian, are readily available on-line or less readily in print in literary journals or small press publications. A potential reason for this oversight is that, in keeping with haiku tradition, Kenshin’s haiku is subtle, complex, highly compressed, and, given the considerable differences between Japanese and Western languages, difficult to translate with any degree of accuracy without the addition of a prose-like summary and explanation that would effectively negate the rigid stylistic qualities inherent to the form. Its translation into other languages, particularly English, at times render the haiku as somewhat flat, unexceptional, and devoid of the intricacies of the original. Nevertheless, in keeping with the English and American haiku form initially developed in the early part of last century and subsequently refined by countless practitioners ever since, Kenshin’s work, competently translated into English, does still manage to offer considerable richness and insight. His haiku, especially when viewed within the context of his short but tragic life, is deeply effective and insightful, even when the various sonic and conceptual intricacies are unavoidably shed as a result of fitting the meanings into the unavoidable stylistic restrictions of haiku in English. 1. Biography Sumitaku Kenshin was born Sumitaku Harumi on the 21st of March, 1961, in Okayama Japan. Though Harumi (meaning “beautiful spring” or “spring beauty”) is generally associated with females, he was likely given that name as he was born during the spring equinox. Sumitaku was the eldest child in his family; a younger sister, Keiko, was born the following year. As a child of 1960s Japan, Kenshin consumed copious amounts of manga and anime then proliferated in popular culture—he was particularly enamored of the works of Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989)—and for much of his childhood he wanted to write and illustrate manga, the first indication of his creative nature. Kenshin completed his primary education in April 1976 at the age of fifteen. He decided not to attend high school, which, in Japan, is not obligatory, though the vast majority of children do go on to high school. Instead, Kenshin pursued a career as a chef. He found employment during the day working as a janitor at the Okayama Social center, while taking night classes in Culinary Arts at the Shimoda Hotel School. There he began a short-lived romance with a twenty-year old waitress, five years his senior. She became pregnant with his child and, though Kenshin wanted to keep it, she opted for an abortion. Kenshin’s parents allowed the couple to live together in their home, however after eight months, she decided to leave him. In May 1978, at the age of seventeen, Kenshin obtained his Culinary Arts degree. He worked in several restaurants, however his employment did not last. By 1980, he found work in the municipal vehicle maintenance team; he became fascinated with bosozoku—Japanese car culture centered on custom motorcycles and cars—and simultaneously developed an interest in Buddhism. In September 1982, Kenshin began a correspondence course in its study, from which he graduated in April 1983. In July 1983, at the age of twenty-two, he was ordained a priest of the Hongan-ji branch of the Jōdo shinshū school of Pure Land Buddhism. He was given the Buddhist name Kenshin, roughly translated “blossoming devotion” and written with the kanji for “revealed faith” (顕信); after his death, readers began to refer to him as Kenshin in the haiku tradition of a haigo or pseudonym of a haiku poet. In October 1983, Kenshin married a woman named Emiko, who was at the time pregnant with his child. Tragically, in February 1984, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia and hospitalized; as luck would have it, his sister was employed as a nurse at the hospital where he was treated; in Japan at that time, if one had a relative who worked for a hospital, you were allowed residency there as long as the relative agreed to take full responsibility for your care. As a result of his illness, Emiko’s parents demanded and obtained a divorce. In June, Kenshin’s now ex-wife Emiko gave birth to a child named Haruki (春木 meaning “spring tree”), an echo of Kenshin’s own name, but also a tribute to poet, film director and producer, and infamous drug smuggler Kadokawa Haruki (1942-). Haruki was initially cared for by Kenshin’s parents yet spent most of his time with Kenshin in his hospital room. Shortly after Haruki’s birth, Kenshin began to write haiku, in part perhaps to occupy him during his long stays in hospital. As noted above, the jiyuritsu style of haiku he chose to write was, by the 1980s, considered somewhat passé, having long been eclipsed by the more widely accepted modern, shasei or “sketch from life”-influenced haiku form developed in the late 19th century by Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) and championed by Shiki’s protege Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959) in the pages of the immensely popular and influential haiku journal Hototogisu, which Kyoshi edited. The opposing tradition of jiyuritsu school, by contrast, was pioneered by Shiki’s other protege Kawahigashi Hekigotō (1873-1937), who in 1911, together with poet Ogiwara Seisensui (1884-1976), established the long-running literary avant-garde journal Sōun (Layered Clouds). Kenshin studied carefully several notable representatives of this movement, most notably Seisensui, Santōka, and particularly Hōsai, whose work Kenshin’s haiku often echoes and alludes to, and later became a member of the group centered around Sōun. By early 1985, Kenshin’s medical condition improved enough for him to be released from the hospital. For a few months Kenshin devoted himself to the promotion of free haiku. In August, he helped to found the journal Kaishi (Marine City). However, by the end of the summer, his health began to deteriorate and he was forced to return to the hospital. In December 1985, he self-published a collection of his haiku, Shisaku-cho (lit. Draft Book). Throughout 1986, Kenshin enjoyed the visits of several haiku practitioners to his hospital room and was at work on the manuscript of a second collection, yet his health worsened and he was forced to remain in isolation. By Christmastime, he was so weakened that he could no longer write and was forced to dictate his haiku to a woman admirer. At the beginning of 1987, Kenshin’s chemotherapy treatment was discontinued and he died on the seventh of February, 1987 at the end of the evening at Okayama hospital, while being watched over by his sister. He was 25 years old. His final manuscript, titled by Kenshin Mikansei (未完成) or Unfinished, consists of 281 haiku, and, at the behest of his friend (and literary executor) Shūichi Ikehata (dates unknown), a former professor of mathematics at the University of Okayama who replaced his love of alcohol with a love for haiku, was published in 1988 by the same publisher as his cherished Complete Works of Hōsai. 2. On Translating Sumitaku Kenshin Translation is often a misnomer. To translate is to imply that the full meaning of the original language has been captured and adequately conveyed in another language. This is, arguably, an easier task for prose than in poetry, where more abstract considerations such as sound and metaphor, and in haiku especially, of wordplay, are the primary aspect of the experience. In poetry, more so than prose, the words themselves are often the main constituent. More often than not, especially with regards to Japanese, which usually utilizes the highly visually syllabary of kanji where pictographic features are still another abstract element, it is impossible for the translator to provide equivalent visual, sonic, and suggestive aspects of the original. Often a translator is therefore not engaged in translation so much as transformation. A thorough examination of the process of translation of Kenshin’s haiku into English is beyond the scope of this brief biography and selection. Nevertheless, perhaps one individual haiku will be sufficient to stand as a representative example of both the difficulties and the possibilities that translation offers. This haiku, notably, also provides the title for the aforementioned film adaptation of Kenshin’s life.: ずぶぬれて犬ころ The romaji is rendered as: zubunurete inukoro. The sonic qualities of the Japanese are already apparent, with a heavy emphasis on the “u” or “ooh” sound, which dominates four of the haiku’s nine mora. As rendered in English, it is impossible to reproduce a similar effect: ずぶ zubu (completely, entirely, totally) ぬれて nurete (to become wet, soaked) 犬ころ inukoro (puppy) As rendered in English, we left with the rather flat, disappointing result of a soaking wet puppy To further break down this haiku into its constituent elements, the translator finds that they are confined by the most literal meaning, as English is a highly literal language, and is left, almost as a consolation prize, with the hopes that this unavoidable reductiveness can still suggest the music and the pathos of the Japanese. In this case, what sublimity can be achieved with a simple, almost comically prosaic image of a “soaking wet puppy”? Regarded in light of Kenshin’s biography, some consequence is afforded: is it Kenshin himself this pathetic image of a young, hopeful, innocent, naive animal, driven by instinct or perhaps abandoned into a storm that has left him miserable and cold? Or perhaps his poor son, soon to lose his father? Another haiku depicts his son in his galoshes; perhaps this is a continuation of the same theme? His son, soon to be left alone in the world, exposed to the unforgiving aspects of the world and with no father there to protect him? There is not even length enough to assign any line breaks, as are traditionally added when translating haiku into a different language. (Haiku is classically presented in one single vertical unbroken line of Japanese characters.) In Japanese, further meanings are given that cannot be duplicated. Most obvious is the echo of kokoro (meaning heart or mind) in inukoro. Zubu brings to mind zabuzabu, onomatopoeia for gushing, sloshing, splashing, and zubuzubu, a soft object pierced, to sink deeply into mud, to be inebriated. Nurete, as well, has onomatopoeic resonances: nuranura is something slippery or slimy. And these are only the most obvious. Taken into consideration, a more comprehensive translation might be rendered: a sloshing, soaking wet, muddy, slippery puppy is the visual equivalent of my drunken heart and mind Or, more briefly: I am drunk like a puppy, soaking wet, slippery, and covered with mud Yet this would be to tell, and not to show. Abstraction and concision must be preserved if it is to retain the same stylistic considerations as its original. As a result, the translator must be satisfied with “a soaking wet puppy,” and hope that he or she has the sympathy of a reader familiar with both the rigorous complexities of haiku in Japanese and the aesthetic sensibility that will accommodate the peculiar precisions and limitations of haiku in English. If anything, haiku translated into a different language has the more difficult task, as they are often far less alliterative and densely onomatopoeic. The opportunities for music, for suggestion, for allusion, and for wordplay, so crucial to the success of any given haiku, are substantially limited in other languages, particularly English. 3. A Small Anthology With these restrictions in mind, I here present a few examples of Kenshin's haiku, translated, or transformed, into English. These haiku are derived from my translation of Unfinished, first published in 2023 by Spuyten Duyvil. I include here the original Japanese and romaji renderings, not present in the collected edition. Some of the haiku have been revised, substantially or insubstantially, from their original form. from 試作帳 Shisaku-chō Draft Book だんだんさむくなる夜の黒い電話機 dandan samuku naru yoru no kuroi denwaki colder and colder the black telephone in the night 焼け跡のにごり水流れる yakeato no nigori-mizu nagareru through the ruins of a fire muddy water flows 淋しさは夜の電話の黒い光沢 sabishisa wa yoru no denwa no kuroi kōtaku loneliness— at night the black polish of the telephone 洗面器の中のゆがんだ顔すくいあげる semmenki no naka no yuganda kao sukuiageru from the washbowl i ladle my distorted face |
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