Today is Earth Day, apparently. To commemorate, I would like to publish a recent translation I made of a poem by Kaneko Misuzu. I had another translation of one of her poems published in Magma magazine some months back, and some more are coming up in Modern Poetry in Translation. But this one is published here for the first time:
Soil
With a thump and with a thud
The soil that is beaten down
Makes a stalwart field
And gives life to wholesome wheat.
From the morning to the night
The soil that is trodden down
Makes a sturdy road
And lets the traffic flow.
The soil that's not beaten down,
The soil that's not trodden on,
Is this soil, then, good for no one?
Oh, no no no,
This is the soil
That gives the nameless weeds
Their home.
Tamsin writes:
Hello, I stumbled across your blog while looking for poetry by Kaneko Misuzu. I discovered this wonderful poet recently when we did a translation of 私と小鳥と鈴と in my third year college Japanese class. Ever since I’ve been looking for bilingual editions of her poetry so I can practice translating, or at least find some Western exposure to this author, but I haven’t had any luck. I guess she is relatively unknown outside of Japan. I’ve been thinking about attempting to order a book of her poetry in Japanese from Amazon.co.jp but there’s a lot of books to choose from so I’m not sure where to start.Anyway beyond all this rambling, your translations are beautiful! I feel like they really evoke the meaning and feeling of her poetry which I know is difficult to do sometimes in translation. I was wondering if you’d be willing to share any more of your wonderful translations on your blog, with the original Japanese if possible. If not, I understand. 🙂 Thanks!swyntell at gmail dot com
Hello Tamsin.Thank you very much for posting. I’m in a bit of a hurry but will write a full reply later. [email protected]