Haiku Guy corrections
the boatman, p. 47 All the haiku in the book attributed to the character "Cup-of-Tea" are my translations of actual Japanese haiku written by Kobayashi Issa. The following translation is no exception...
the boatman pisses
but misses
the real moon
The problem is, a few years after publishing Haiku Guy I took a hard look at this haiku and found that it was badly translated. Here's what Issa really wrote (well, at least a closer English version of it):
hey boatman
no pissing on the moon
in the waves!
The haiku in my book is a nice one, I think, but not something that Issa wrote.
Shiro's snow poem, p. 58 At this point in the text, four drunk poets write (piddle) their final haiku of the year in the snow behind Cup-of-Tea's hovel. Shiro, the Poet in White who never talks but loves to imagine wordless verses or "dibbits," goes third. On the very bottom of the page, a bolded, centered period should appear, representing Shiro's piss-poem—unfortunately, this period got lost in the editing process. So, if you buy a book, or already have one, or even if you find one on the shelf of your local public library; please add the crucial missing dot! Here's the passage:
But Shiro's dibbit was complete, by Shiro's standards. Deep into the snow bank he wrote:
.
The missing sixth part of my brain, p. 54 On this page, where I enumerate various parts of my brain and the different things that they happen to be doing in that moment, I relate what the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth parts are thinking, then skip inexplicably to the seventh, eighth, and ninth parts. Which leaves a mystery, or what my writing group comrade Micky would call an aporia, a something missing in the text: What the hell is the sixth part of my brain doing on that page? I have no idea. I must have lost count.
And part of my brain, the fifth, thinks that maybe today's writing can wait. I'll hustle on down to Bourbon Street, lose myself among dizzy tourists and beer-spitting footbal fans, and guzzle away the rest of the afternoon at three-for-one Happy Hour in the karaoke bar. This part of my mind, where Mido revels, usually prevails.
The seventh part of my mind worries: Will my writing group complain about the pointlessness of this digression?
In future editions, I'll ask my editor to renumber this. Meanwhile, you could do the same in your copy, if you like.
back Also by David G. Lanoue...Kobayashi Issa Archive