|
home paraverse press new books reviews for all books errata for all books glosses for all books haiku |
|
paraverse press book lines All books, unless otherwise noted, are by robin d. gill. The titles for books without exact publication dates are tentative, some more so than others. Published books are bold. updated 10/2007 |
||
|
haiku IPOOH In Praise Of Olde Haiku = IPOOH = Haiku originally had five seasons and this olde haiku saijiki will initially be published in ten books, two per each of five volumes. Later, ten more books will provide the bottom half (a Japanese term) of the five volumes. Each book has ten themes. The research is 80% done, but the writing only 20% done. The Fifth Season, IPOOH Volume I = 2000 haiku re. 20 themes of New Year's Haiku (shinnenbu), published on the Chinese luni-solar New Year, 2007 of 2007. Description. IPOOH spin-offs Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! (2003) Already a classic! Almost 1000 haiku, all about sea cucumbers (namako) on the average 200 years old, in the original Japanese, with romanization and multiple translations , arranged metaphorically and seasoned with natural history of both the scientific and the quirky ilk. ($25., 480 pg.) See: newbooks.htm risesample reviews risenews Fly-ku! (2004). Includes the discovery of a senryu behind Issa's famous fly who begs for mercy and explains why the anthropomorphism is largely a product of translation and inevitable because of accidents of language (220 pgs. $15). newbooks.htm fly-ku description, fly-ku review, fly-ku sample. Cherry Blossom Epiphany (2006-7). Exciting drunken bashes, erotic metaphor, philosophic reverie. The translated haiku about cherry blossoms and their viewing include a score of waka, for unlike the case with sea cucumber, this haiku theme predates haikai and about 100 ku by Sogi a renga (linked-verse) master that predate the generally accepted date for the start of haiku by hundreds of years. Official date of publication was the Spring Equinox of 2007. A description including the table of contents and cataloging info is here. Reviews here! With 3,000 translated ku, this 740 pp book of the Poetry and Philosophy of a Flowering Tree is not expensive at $39. Hot Haiku, Cold Haiku (2007) Where haiku can indulge in the game of hyperbole. Want to do this book with students, if possible. 20% done. Cicada (2007) Includes Lafcadio Hearn essay/collected cicada poems. Will need a sound track. 40% done. Swellfish Soup (?) Life and death in haiku. Waiting for pictures. 50% done. Mosquito Boast (?) I will need to add many of my own haiku to this one, for I live without screens and do not dislike female mosquitoes for i tell myself they are looking out after my health as the loss of iron (with my blood) will increase my longevity if malaria doesn't kill me . . .10% done. Other (crazier) haiku, senryu & kyoka. The Mullet in the Maid -- and the man in the ray (Fall 2006?). Erotic marine life in senryu, haiku and folksong. 50% done. Issa Bluesman (?) -- the strategy behind Issa's poetry. Thousands of pages of manuscript! 10% done Dirty Senryu! What was titled The Real Thing here was published on Halloween of 2007 under not one but TWO names as an experiment. The 504 pp book is a selection of about 1,300 senryu of the sort Blyth thought would never be printed (The censors wouldn't allow it.), with the originals and indexes, etc. as was the case with the haiku books. General information about Octopussy, Dry Liver & Blue Spots, or, The Woman Without a Hole may be found in New Books a description here, and a Table of Contents here. It was finished and published before other haiku work with the hope of getting much needed publicity which did not happen. But it will be reviewed by an academic and mentioned in another academic book reprinted this year by the U. of Hawaii Press. Mad In Translation -- the first full-length introduction of kyoka (kyouka), which might be called comic waka or, after M Kei in the USA, "tanka noir," was only started in February but will be out in Fall, 2008. Besides the 18-19c kyoka from the boom set off by the poetic and organizational genius of Ota Nanpo, we will see what might be called wild waka (the most to date are found in Cranston's Waka Anthology 2a), old kyoka, some but not all by Zen monks, kyoka of the Osaka boom from Teitoku to Teigyu and beyond, political humor called kashu, or fallen heads, and moral poems called douka or kyoukun that, when humorous, may also be called kyoka, or mad poems, not to mention some mad haiku, The author was fortunate to have much advice from Yoshioka Ikuo, a tanka devotee and author of a book of death poems (jisei) who would put the warai back in waka. My approach is even broader than his for I feel it necessary to put the "mad" poems in perspective. japan-related Orientalism & Occidentalism: is the mistranslation of culture inevitable? ( 2004 ). Why translating between exotic tongues (Japanese and English) creates false stereotypes about the other and how this is caused by the limits of our respective languages (cannot be helped) and biased translation (can be helped). ( 180 pgs $12.00) newbooks.htm orisample.htm) Topsy-Turvy 1585 --- 611 Ways Japanese and Europeans Differed according to Luis Frois, S.J. translated and explicated to no end. (2004) Frois's treatise (tratado), comprised entirely of two-line contrasts, is a classic (in Japan, anyway, for there are two pocket-books, one of which has gone about twenty editions). The original Portuguese is included and my notes comprise 95% of the book, so it is by robin d. gill rather than by Frois, but not only is all of this important work by Frois in it, but parts of his Historia and a book about a mission to Europe of Japanese youth never before translated into English, etc. (740 pgs! $33.33.) Introduction. Sample pages. Reviews List of 611 ways. Topsy-Turvy: 1585 The Short Version (2005) This, too! (460 pgs. $23?) Exotic Tongues: Loving (and hating) Two Languages -- while 80% written, this may not be published for a few years. |
words (apologies, for this is a sudden addition!) A Dolphin in the Woods, In the Floods a Boar -- composite translation, paraversing and prose-distillation Hurricanes permitting, Fall 2008. Samples of my work in multiple translation and books collecting the same by others, including 100 Frogs, 19 Wang Weis, Le Ton Beau de Marot, etc. and other new material promoting paraversing -- playing with poetry -- as a game which beats crosswords as a product is created. Includes some drawings by Thomas Hood. nature Han-chan’s Dream: an essay in felinity (Hurricane permitting, out 2008, fall, finally!). About a real cat who was very bright (could do a dozen different tricks) and comically hyper because of his extraordinary ability to imagine many things happening before they did. 95% written, but the color illustrations require waiting until I find or acquire deep pockets (large publishers or agents with connections, please contact me if you want one of the two best cat books in English, meanwhile I am doing it B&W). Tanuki Balls: the real racoon-fox and the legend (2009?). About my relationship with three generations of real tanuki -- the time it requires to go from apprehension to total trust (sitting down with them and petting them) and the bizarre folk animal. 50% written, but this, too, will be a fully illustrated book, so i must wait . Five Thoreaus: If five notebooks, now lost in Japan are found, they only need to be scanned in and a Surreal Thoreau, Phenomenological Thoreau, Semiological Thoreau, Relational Thoreau and, I forget the fifth collection edited from Thoreau's journal will bring a new perspective to Thoreau studies. These are 90% done or LOST forever (in the end, due to poverty). I do not yet know and I am too afraid to check for the time being. HURRAH! THE NOTEBOOKS KINDLY SHIPPED TO ME -- THEY WERE SAFE IN THE BASEMENT OF A TOP JAPANESE CARTOONIST (Ueda Masashi), CAREFULLY TENDED TO BY HIS MOTHER, A HAIKU ENTHUSIAST AND A SWEETHEART -- HAVE ARRIVED! NOW, ALL I NEED IS SOMEONE TO SCAN THEM IN FOR ME BECAUSE MY EQUIPMENT IS VERY SLOW AND MY TIME LIMITED! (there are 3000 pages) THE DIFFICULT THING WILL BE WORKING WITH 5 FILES, FOR I HAVE LESS THAN 13 INCHES OF SCREEN TO SHUFFLE BACK AND FORTH IN. history and making history The Nation With No Name (?) [A novel treatment of the same with almost the same name (Sebastian de Grazia: A Nation ~) has come out, but this is 30 years in the making and includes some very amusing correspondence de Grazia overlooked, so I will publish the 90% finished nonfiction treatment of the effort to give the United States a bona-fide National Name in 2007 or later. If possible, I would like to finish this with Usanian students, somewhere. Redressing the World: why men should wear skirts (?) The historical pantification of the world is decried and the benefits of open-ended clothing for the sex that does not divide evenly down the middle. A chapter in rdg=Han-nihonjinron (1984) is the most thorough treatment of the subject to date (The second being a chapter in Alan Watts' best book, Does It Matter? Ideally, this book would be completed together with with students and cause a revolution in male clothing with the gain of freedom that entails. Soft Is Beautiful. The Occident, especially the new Rome, Imperial America, is obsessed with muscles and hardness. Once softness was considered desirable and to some of us, it still is. This is an effort to point out the unnatural muscle fetish of the West and a hymn to an alternative beauty. Even our manner of celebration is hard today. Compare the open palm of the past and the punches in the air today! See the box on the fist-pumping (Japanese call it a "gut's pose") bracken in Fly-ku! The Accident of Beauty. A book about personal beauty that will be finished if/when I have university students to co-author with. The title comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes. Outside of haiku, this is my leading area of expertise, for I have researched on and off for over 30 years. My juvenile title "The Myth of Beauty" was taken by another who, as it turns out, wrote an all too juvenile book. "The thin is more naked, more indecent, than the fat." - Baudelaire I
recently wrote an essay: "The Thin Man's Complaint" which, with any luck
will be carried by The Exquisite Corpse and cause a commotion for it is
quite a polemic! In a word, the fat majority of the USA do not
realize that they have it made. We who are involuntarily thin know
how lucky they are to be free to make their bodies. It will be
followed by "Soft is Beautiful."
personal quest One String Revolution – experiments to change the future of music-making. A good friend could play any complex instrument well, but could not warble folk-songs like me. I was the vice versa and no amount of study changed it. So, decades later, I experimented with one. two and three-string instruments that could be, as it were, played by feel . . .. Had I only a wee amount of the money that most Americans waste, I would have taken a number of patents for some wonderful basic inventions. I will divulge more later. Let me just say that I feel confident my inventions and discoveries can lead to a musical revolution that can finally get us past the 1960's (which I loved, but I do get tired of the lack of originality today -- of course, there are some great singer-songwriters and we get to hear more non-Western music today, but we are not doing much to create original melody and harmony). But this is only so much jive, before long I hope to prove it live! ( onestring.htm )
translations I am thinking about translating a book about the culture of snowflakes and another about tools that never existed, but only after I have an assistant to help speed my own books along or students to work with. With 8000 haiku and senryu translated within my books, I am already translating, but with 99.9% of books categorized as original or translated, my in-between books have, so far, failed to find the support they deserve. If you know of any foundations or journals gutsy enough to serve not only the 99.9%, but the 00.1%, please let me know. - rdg.
|
|