Synopsis:

900+ translated haiku, all on the sea cucumber and most over a hundred years old, with a good measure of natural history.

You might know about Ponge and his object poems, but the sea cucumber, a featureless and formless (protean) animal without a ganglia of brain, is the ultimate "thing," a thing that to all appearances is no more than such; yet, in Japan, there are thousands of haiku about it (namako in Japanese). How can this be? The title comes from Issa's evocative haiku, written in a month when the gods of Japan, one of whom (a goddess) lacerated its mouth rendering it speechless, are away caucusing and only Buddhist mercy rules the land. Haiku are taxed and essayed by metaphor .  The practicality and joy of multiple readings are demonstrated by clusters of what might  be called composite translation and the original Japanese of all poems is provided.

The sea cucumber is generally translated as a "sea slug" in haiku tradition because it is metaphorically more apt and, being shorter, fits more easily. "Trepang" is traditionally the first definition for "sea slug" in the OED, so it is not wrong, but scientifically-minded laymen can become very upset with its use for the holothurian, as conventional usage in marine science today makes the sea slug a nudibranch, a comparitively lively critter with a Nobel Prize winning brain so colorful one may even find a "Nudi of the Day." Our subject, a literal no brainer, deserves credit for working all night to keep sand clean, is made of smart material and, "knows" how to live. As TIT professor, singing biologist and best-selling author, Motokawa Tatsuo (in my translation) put it,

"by staying still and learning to live on so little, the namako has turned this world into its paradise."

Book Excerpt:

Each chapter of Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!  focuses on a different type of sea cucumber, not a different biological species, but a different semiological species.  In biology, the line between species is not always solid.  Even with DNA called in to arbitrate, arbitrary lines, i.e. definitions, have to be made. The same thing is true with respect to organizing a poetic typology. [Here I skip the haiku because it includes Japanese and is formated in a manner not reproducible here]  Moreover, I had to do this work completely de novo, with no Linnaean system, indeed no prior system at all, to assist me.  My modus operandi was simple.  I collected every old haiku and senryu on the sea cucumber I could – and tried to divide them thematically.  I wavered back and forth as I made new finds. It was something like playing cards, where a new draw might make you decide to go for a full-house rather than a straight.  In the end, I had a good hand.  As the Table of Content shows, I managed to invent no less than twenty-one semiological species –  metaphorical groupings, if you prefer – and, as the text will show, many more sub-species, scores of which have been compiled into a large extra chapter of Sundry Slugs. [following another haiku and a paragraph, a last haiku, a figurative translation from Japanese titled "Tristam Shandy"  

straight lines
are beyond sea slug's
wildest dreams.

It is centered and followed by a reproduction of Tristam Shandy's plot-line illustration. Note that this book must be seen to be believed and you may do just that at Googlebooks or Amazon.

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Author Comment:

While the book has been graced with some excellent reviews (see the review page at paraverse dot org) and brilliant blurbs, the author hopes to find a bit more attention given to the novelties in the book: the outrageous page-by-page headers, the idea of chaptering poems on a theme by metaphor, the visual success or failure of clusters of composite translation, the practice of using Japanese not only to be authentic but to make chapter head designs more interesting, the use of notes as lively or livelier than the main text (this was noted by one reviewer), the mixture of translation, essay and natural history.  Also, let me confess that because I was inventing the cluster-form of composite translation and learning ms-word as I went, and circumstances did not permit me to go back and redo the entire book, some of the multiple translations are still in serial form, which I am unhappy with and hope to fix some day. 

Topics/Categories:

Ambiguity, Food Symbolism, haiku, Japanese Culture, Metaphor in Poetry, Natural History, Sea Cucumbers, Translation and Interpretation, Translation from Japanese

Genre:

Activism, Alternate History, American Politics, Asian Cultural Studies, Asian-American History, Asian-American Literature, Criticism, Cultural Analysis, Cultural History, Current Events, General - Pets, General Culture, General Erotica, General Essays, General Folklore - Mythology, General Nonfiction, General Novel, General Politics, Natural Science

Type of Work:

Book

Publishers:

Paraverse Press

Purchase From:

Barnes & Noble
Amazon

Original Publish Date:

2003-10-31

ISBNs:

0974261807

Publishing Notes:

I am unsure what "publishing notes" means, but the author is the publisher. 

The publisher should have edited the book better.  He wanted to pay a friend (who edits for a top academic press) to edit but he could not even afford to pay himself. Indeed, at the very time he should have been improving the book, he translated a novel (anonymously) because its author paid him well and he was (and, still is) a pauper.  Then, when a rave review by the top person in the haiku appeared, he should have sent a hundred or so reading copies around the nation and maybe he would have had a review in a major magazine or paper.  Again, even the money to prime the pump was not there.  It might be nice to see what bookstores can do with the book, and the other paraverse books, for all are very inexpensive for their length, but he cannot afford to gamble, so they are all "no return." Now that the proverbial editor no longer exists, or is so rare that one's chance of finding him or her is that of finding a flying fish in space, the time of author-publishing is here.  But, to prove it can be successful, some money is needed.  Also, please note that Paraverse Press has online Errata for typos and stylos and, occasionally actual errors, and Glosses/Marginalia.  All publishers should do this, especially the many academic presses that no longer edit the books they publish (some have scores of major mistranslations).  This is written not to boast or to put down competitors, but because, seeing the published errata, some, not knowing how common errors (not just typos) are out there, write me: So when are you going to do a corrected version?  I -- sorry, I must switch back to first-person -- will in my good time, after enough people have read each book that I can be damn sure most major errors have been spotted!

Formats:

Paperback perfect-bound, 7 and 1/2 by 9 and 3/4 inches, 484pp