Poems of Days Past (Arishi hi no uta)

It’s got both the Japanese and English which is really cool for folks trying to learn one or the other! For BSD fans, Sheep Song isn’t here.

Before I knew anything about Nakahara Chuya's poetry, I had heard comparisons - from those who know (though they are few), namely to Jim Morrison and Arthur Rimbaud, which of course goes well beyond mere poetry and delves into the personal lives of three very different poets from three extremely different lands living in three diametrically different time periods. But there is something which defines the similarities of Chuya to these other two western poetic figures (and the world of poetry), who are better well known, rather than the vast array of differences which would plague any early 20th century poet living in a country increasingly looking to prove its status to the world via aggressive means, a society not known for its public support of esoteric figures, nor a history of being an easily accessable territory for western eyes.Chuya, and especially Ry Beville's increasingly important work as a translator, is the antithesis of the Japan Commodore Perry's battleships forced open some 150 years ago. Chuya comes to you, willingly, wanting you to explore what makes him himself. His influences, his experiences and his sensory perception wrap themselves within the spare world of tanka poetry yet his melodic yearnings find a way to break free of the old system and give birth to a new lyrical form of poetry, which Mr. Beville translates with his own verse style, impeccably.Before living in Japan, I had not heard of any but the most famous Japanese haiku-ists: Basho, Issa & Shiki to name a few. I constantly wondered why such a poetic society would not promote more of its recent poets to the world, as I myself only knew the few noted above yet none from the modern age. This has to do with accessability and this is where Ry Beville's work comes in. Beville's work is good, solid, borders on great, and as purveyors of poetic translations should always be wary of new translations, there is cause for some up close examination in his persistence in translating "the feel" of Chuya for the western audience. Though because Beville has great feel for kanji/kana scripts and is a strong poet and musician in his own right, there is truly no cause for alarm but rather a reason to celebrate. Chuya is free, finally, for readers whose understanding of kanji is low or nil, to be read and heard everywhere.This second of his planned three books stands so far as the definitive Nakahara Chuya. I look forward to, in what would have been Chuya's 100th year, the third and final translation's eventual publication.

In addition to its attractive design, intelligent introduction, and helpful bilingual format, this book's translations move with graceful rhythms in finely rendered English. I applaud the translator's bold, and no doubt controversial, decision to commit to verse translations. One of the greatest pleasures of reading Chuya in the original Japanese is the richness of sound, from complex rhythms to other forms of structural repetition. Finally, we have translations that give precedence to this essential characteristic of Chuya's poetry, and I would say Beville is for the most part successful. I see that he has deployed a number of sound devices in English that don't correspond directly to the Japanese (when do translations ever correspond directly?), but nevertheless convey the aural beauty of the originals. Reading these, for me, is like rediscovering Chuya in English. New readers are fortunate to have a translation so true to the spirit of the original.That said, Beville does on occasion take some slight liberties in his translations, apparently to meet the technical constraints he has imposed on himself in conveying the sound devices of the original. Word order may sometimes change, and there are some neutral "filler" words, so to speak, that you might not glean from the original- all so that the poems rhyme or scan according to a certain meter, I'm guessing. Still, these compromises do not do violence to the poems. Purists and literalists may cringe, but Beville does not seem to have sacrificed too much of the original meaning- and don't the sound qualities he translated mean something? I would say, in Chuya's case, everything!What other possible drawbacks? I would have liked notes to some of the poems, but at least the introduction was thorough enough to help me understand the traditions from which some of the more opaque poems are working. The price is also higher than most poetry books, but it is so rare to find a bilingual Japanese poetry book that has been well edited that I hardly minded- the quality of the book also did not disappoint. Finally, the Japanese print was smaller than the English, but maybe this was done to fit it all on one page?Comparing this to his other book of Chuya poems, I see that Beville's skill as a translator has matured considerably. I look forward to his future work, whether prose or poetry.

I have read so much haiku over the years that I was surprised to find a Japanese poet like this. It was quite refreshing. In some ways, it is like reading the European poets of the late 19th and early 20th century, since he uses some of the same techniques, but the Japanese tradition comes through as well, from the images to some of the subject matter-- there is that gasp of recognition and pleasure when you see stock themes and imagery from ancient haiku recast in more modern settings and poetic techniques. Chuya truly is a world poet.

By most accounts the most important poet of modern Japan, Nakahara Chuya remained largely untranslated until this, the second of two fine translations by Ry Beville. Any skepticism about translated poetry is soon vanquished as the unmistakable voice of Nakahara Chuya appears in powerfully rhythmic English.A must have for fans of Japanese literature, and anyone interested in Japanese culture.