Kitties in Translation: 4 Seasons of Haikus

I’ve had a small poetry kick lately because of a few well-aligned coincidences: one, I purchased an anthology that I had my eye on since a few years ago (Language for a New Century, with contemporary poetry from the Middle East, Asia + the diaspora); two, my sister showed me Doublespeak, a poetry translation magazine at UPenn; and three, I’ve been looking at a haiku collection on my bookshelf lately.

This collection of haikus has had an interesting history:  titled《猫与四季》(Cats and the Four Seasons in Chinese), it features haikus by Kobayashi Issa, one of the four great haiku poets in Japan.  I purchased it in the Tai Koo Li shopping complex in Chengdu, China in Summer 2019 at the really cool Fang Suo bookstore, and now it’s here with me, in good ol’ New Jersey!

Cats and the Four Seasons

poems by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Wu Fei, illustrations by Qian Ju Wan

Moreover, it features Kobayashi’s poems in the original Japanese, translated into Chinese!! How cool is that?! As a casual language nerd, I had to add this to my bookshelf — and also because each haiku is paired with simple illustrations, often a cat or other creature (and I am sucker for cute aesthetic things). The book collected dust until spring of 2020, where  for my Intermediate Japanese final project, I used a Kobayashi poem in my exploration of haikus and translation!

So, with this confluence of coincidences, along with my recent yearning to delve into my creative side and keep up my Japanese and Chinese vocabulary,  I decided to try my hand at translating a few of Kobayashi’s poems into English, with the original Japanese and translated Chinese as my guide. And luckily, not *too* many of his haikus have readily available English translations for me to rely on. 

A note: the book is divided into four sections based on the seasons, plus an additional small section for New Year’s. Since it’s winter, I’ll start with haikus I like in that section! I’d make separate posts for the sections (see winter post). Before looking at that, I’d recommend reading the context below to shed some light on Issa and haikus in general :)

about kobayashi issa

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) was one of the four Great Haiku Poets  (in Japanese, 四大俳人) along with the most-known Matsuo Basho. Issa was his pen name, meaning “a cup of tea.” With the deaths of his first wife and three children, as well as economic instability and other troubles, his life was quite sorrowful despite the popularity of his writing. He often wrote about nature’s tiniest inhabitants: cats, birds, and even mosquitoes, touching upon empathy, loneliness, and the human condition. This search for understanding in the smallest parts of our universe is something that struck me with warmth and nostalgia — like finishing the last sip of a cup of tea.

a 3-point crash course on haikus

(The slides from my Intermediate Japanese presentation! I have more info in my final project essay here! Feel free to run it through Google Translate :D).

First, a haiku is a 3-line poem with a 5-7-5 mora structure; morae are kind of like syllables, defined as  phonological units that represent the “ordinary or normal short sound or syllable.” Most of the time, it means the same thing, but the difference can be seen with long vowels and stand-alone unit n in Japanese — for instance, sho-u (“show”) would be one syllable, but two morae because of the u.

Second, traditional haikus depict a moment in time, centered on nature: each would use a kigo (季語), or seasonal word/phrase. You can find more about them here. Haikus originally were opening stanzas to long-form, collaborative renga poems, and would always include a kigo to establish the season/tone of the poem. There are established lists of kigo divided into the four seasons + the New Year (actual dictionary here!). So that’s why this book is in 4 + an additional smaller sections… but more contemporary haikus definitely are flexible with this rule. Another core feature in a haiku is the kireji (切れ字),  a “cutting word” used to convey finality & bring the haiku back to its beginning, or create two contrasting images, depending on its location (like phrase-final ya or kana~). It’s good to note that 1) contemporary poets definitely push the boundaries of what haikus are, beyond the 5-7-5 structure, and 2) these kireji, without English equivalents, provide a lot of consternation when it comes to translating. You can only use emdashes and emphatic “Oh!” so many times.

And third, another point of conflict in translating haiku is the ambiguity of event-order and person/item number in the Japanese language. In English, our boundaries of grammar often force us to assign an event before the next, determiners and object numbers (is there one rock? A rock? The rock?), and subjects (I? She? you?). If this sounds confusing, this article describes it in more concrete terms. A metaphorical description: an original haiku offers images like floating clouds, with beauty not in their positionings, but their misty colorings.

I will end with some Chinese translation practice, from the poetry book’s cover reflections by well-known reviewers. I thought they were quite poetic in their own right.

天下好诗，无非猫诗。(范晔) 

The world’s good poetry is nothing but cat poetry. (Fan Ye)

这里的每一首俳句，

都是一小袋猫粮，

经由读者的手，

放在喵星人的小屋门口。

这猫粮是四季不缺的，

与星光，露水，梅花和嫩叶有关。(史航)

Every haiku here is

a small bag of cat treats

that by every reader’s hand,

is left at the entrance to the abodes

of these mystical creatures.*

This allure, linked to

starlight, dewdrops

plum blossoms, tender leaves

never wanes, all four seasons. (Shi Hang)

*I found out that 喵星人 is an Internet slang phrase that refers to cats as extraterrestrial creatures that came to Earth and earned the trust of humans with their cuteness. And that is literally the cutest thing I have ever heard.

Dec 2020: Linked here is the first small collection I translated, for winter :) I hope you enjoy!