At last! Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart is complete and ready for sale. I'm well pleased with the way it turned out, although I cannot say that I am happy with the Lulu.com global distribution system. Errors on their part caused delays and frustration and expense on my part. Still, it is done at last, and the book is out and selling. So far reviews left on the site are excellent with an average five star rating (*****). Even my daughter, the teenage skeptic, says it's pretty cool.
~K~
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
BOOK NOTE: FIRE PEARLS
BOOK NOTE: Please forward to all interested parties.
October 19, 2006
FIRE PEARLS: SHORT MASTERPIECES OF THE HUMAN HEART
M. Kei, Editor
FIRE PEARLS: SHORT MASTERPIECES OF THE HUMAN HEART —
Edited by M. Kei, trade paperback, 160 pages, $14.95 USD. Available from or major booksellers.
A handsome new anthology of nearly four hundred tanka, kyoka, cinquains, and free verse by more than fifty poets from around the world. Includes both well known and emerging voices, arranged into five seasons that explore the human heart through its many manifestations of love and passion.
“Fire Pearls will be quite a surprise for those who are frequent readers of tanka, the five-line poem with a 1300 year history. For newcomers to tanka, the poems should be a challenge and a delight. The last section, entitled 'Fifth Season,' is a tour de force. To journey through this anthology is to experience key moments of our lives.“ — Sanford Goldstein, co-translator of Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami
“What a magnificent anthology . . . it weakens, heartens, humbles, enlarges, and delivers so many poetic truths that I just am so glad to see this come to fruition.” — Tom Clausen, author of Growing Late
Excerpts from Fire Pearls:
between sun and shade
a butterfly pauses
like none I've seen—
who ever falls in love
with someone they know?
Michael McClintock
the tilt
of her head to undo
an earring—
fortresses crumble into
winter moonlight
Larry Kimmel
rain-furled hibiscus—
in the slow refolding
of our secret places
we draw even closer
than at passion's zenith
Beverley George
White birch
with black-streaked trunk,
How many Russian girls
have hugged you, crying for their long
lost loves?
Zhanna P. Rader
His heart
is a skeleton key
that unlocks doors
that should never
be opened.
M. Kei
mourners assemble
after Joe’s funeral—
they come
to pick widow Green’s apples
and press out the amber juice
John Daleiden
and still
there may be encounters
in this penny world,
and still the electric surge
of a look, a stare, a nod
Sanford Goldstein
To purchase, or for more information, contact:
M. Kei, Editor
P O Box 1118
Elkton, MD, 21922-1118
.
October 19, 2006
FIRE PEARLS: SHORT MASTERPIECES OF THE HUMAN HEART
M. Kei, Editor
FIRE PEARLS: SHORT MASTERPIECES OF THE HUMAN HEART —
Edited by M. Kei, trade paperback, 160 pages, $14.95 USD. Available from
A handsome new anthology of nearly four hundred tanka, kyoka, cinquains, and free verse by more than fifty poets from around the world. Includes both well known and emerging voices, arranged into five seasons that explore the human heart through its many manifestations of love and passion.
“Fire Pearls will be quite a surprise for those who are frequent readers of tanka, the five-line poem with a 1300 year history. For newcomers to tanka, the poems should be a challenge and a delight. The last section, entitled 'Fifth Season,' is a tour de force. To journey through this anthology is to experience key moments of our lives.“ — Sanford Goldstein, co-translator of Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami
“What a magnificent anthology . . . it weakens, heartens, humbles, enlarges, and delivers so many poetic truths that I just am so glad to see this come to fruition.” — Tom Clausen, author of Growing Late
Excerpts from Fire Pearls:
between sun and shade
a butterfly pauses
like none I've seen—
who ever falls in love
with someone they know?
Michael McClintock
the tilt
of her head to undo
an earring—
fortresses crumble into
winter moonlight
Larry Kimmel
rain-furled hibiscus—
in the slow refolding
of our secret places
we draw even closer
than at passion's zenith
Beverley George
White birch
with black-streaked trunk,
How many Russian girls
have hugged you, crying for their long
lost loves?
Zhanna P. Rader
His heart
is a skeleton key
that unlocks doors
that should never
be opened.
M. Kei
mourners assemble
after Joe’s funeral—
they come
to pick widow Green’s apples
and press out the amber juice
John Daleiden
and still
there may be encounters
in this penny world,
and still the electric surge
of a look, a stare, a nod
Sanford Goldstein
To purchase, or for more information, contact:
M. Kei, Editor
P O Box 1118
Elkton, MD, 21922-1118
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Counting Syllables
Recently some one on a tanka workshop email list pleaded to be told the 'correct' number of syllables to be used in writing English-language tanka. I posted the following response:
There is no correct syllable count for English-language tanka, because tanka are not built on syllables. They are built on 'on' which is translated as 'syllable,' but this is an error. The correct translation is 'mora,' which is a unit of sound. For example, the English word 'stretch' is only one syllable, but three mora. str-e-tch. In Japanese, it would be four or five morae.
Since English prosody is built on the syllable, not the mora, it is impossible to make any direct correlation between Japanese 'on' and English syllables. In short, it is linguistically impossible to count syllables correctly in English for the simple reason that syllables are not what the Japanese count.
Japanese and English are extremely different languages. An English verse contains approximately 35% more information than a verse of equal syllable count in Japanese. Therefore, your syllable count in English should rarely exceed 31. Usually English-language tanka fall into the range of 21 - 27 syllables, but there are no hard and fast rules about this.
Some people adopt various alternative schema to mimic the Japanese form, such as the rubric of 'short-long-short-long-long', the adoption of metered feet of 2-3-2-3-3, and various other forms. Most people writing in English settle for the pattern of five phrases on five lines.
Yet even this has problems; Japanese tanka are written in one, two, or three lines, or whatever lineation happens to suit either the style of the calligraphy or the space available. Since Japanese is structurally different than English, the precise arrangement of lines and words on the page does not have the same impact that the choice of line breaks does in English; the calligrapher is free to place line breaks in Japanese where he pleases, but the same is not true in English.
A small number of English-language poets regard the 'on' or mora as not being the most important unit of the tanka; some poets regard the division of the poem into two parts to be the defining feature. Two- part structure is certainly common in tanka, but not universal; tanka have been written with one, two, three, four, and five part structures.
If two part structure is used, English-language tanka frequently places the break at the end of L3, probably due to the influence of haiku, but it could just as viably occur at the end of L1, 2, 3, or 4 and often does in Japanese. Three part structures are not rare in tanka, four and five parts are fairly uncommon, but unitary tanka (no breaks), also referred to as a 'rush of five lines down,' are well enough known to have inspired the name of the first tanka-only journal in English, Five Lines Down, edited by Sanford Goldstein (one of the most prominent translators of modern Japanese tanka) and Kenneth Tamemura.
In short, the translation of a Japanese poetic form to English is not easy, and no one can make it simple for you. In fact, given the profound differences between English and Japanese, I would argue that 5-7-5-7-7 syllables is about the only wrong way to write a tanka. Poems of this length are far too wordy. The Japanese originals are lithe, supple poems.
My advice is: Aim for the greatest possible meaning in the fewest necessary words, pleasingly arranged on five lines.
~K~
References:
Nakagawa, Atsuo. Tanka in English: In Pursuit of World Tanka. Tokyo: New Currents Internataionl, 1990 [1987].
Gilbert, Richard. 'Stalking the Wild Onji: The Search for Current Linguistic Terms Used in Japanese Poetry Circles.' AHA Books Online. Previously published in Language Issues: Journal of the Foreign Language Education Center.(1999, Vol. 5, No. 1). Prefectural University of Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan.
There is no correct syllable count for English-language tanka, because tanka are not built on syllables. They are built on 'on' which is translated as 'syllable,' but this is an error. The correct translation is 'mora,' which is a unit of sound. For example, the English word 'stretch' is only one syllable, but three mora. str-e-tch. In Japanese, it would be four or five morae.
Since English prosody is built on the syllable, not the mora, it is impossible to make any direct correlation between Japanese 'on' and English syllables. In short, it is linguistically impossible to count syllables correctly in English for the simple reason that syllables are not what the Japanese count.
Japanese and English are extremely different languages. An English verse contains approximately 35% more information than a verse of equal syllable count in Japanese. Therefore, your syllable count in English should rarely exceed 31. Usually English-language tanka fall into the range of 21 - 27 syllables, but there are no hard and fast rules about this.
Some people adopt various alternative schema to mimic the Japanese form, such as the rubric of 'short-long-short-long-long', the adoption of metered feet of 2-3-2-3-3, and various other forms. Most people writing in English settle for the pattern of five phrases on five lines.
Yet even this has problems; Japanese tanka are written in one, two, or three lines, or whatever lineation happens to suit either the style of the calligraphy or the space available. Since Japanese is structurally different than English, the precise arrangement of lines and words on the page does not have the same impact that the choice of line breaks does in English; the calligrapher is free to place line breaks in Japanese where he pleases, but the same is not true in English.
A small number of English-language poets regard the 'on' or mora as not being the most important unit of the tanka; some poets regard the division of the poem into two parts to be the defining feature. Two- part structure is certainly common in tanka, but not universal; tanka have been written with one, two, three, four, and five part structures.
If two part structure is used, English-language tanka frequently places the break at the end of L3, probably due to the influence of haiku, but it could just as viably occur at the end of L1, 2, 3, or 4 and often does in Japanese. Three part structures are not rare in tanka, four and five parts are fairly uncommon, but unitary tanka (no breaks), also referred to as a 'rush of five lines down,' are well enough known to have inspired the name of the first tanka-only journal in English, Five Lines Down, edited by Sanford Goldstein (one of the most prominent translators of modern Japanese tanka) and Kenneth Tamemura.
In short, the translation of a Japanese poetic form to English is not easy, and no one can make it simple for you. In fact, given the profound differences between English and Japanese, I would argue that 5-7-5-7-7 syllables is about the only wrong way to write a tanka. Poems of this length are far too wordy. The Japanese originals are lithe, supple poems.
My advice is: Aim for the greatest possible meaning in the fewest necessary words, pleasingly arranged on five lines.
~K~
References:
Nakagawa, Atsuo. Tanka in English: In Pursuit of World Tanka. Tokyo: New Currents Internataionl, 1990 [1987].
Gilbert, Richard. 'Stalking the Wild Onji: The Search for Current Linguistic Terms Used in Japanese Poetry Circles.' AHA Books Online.
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