THE
old pond
frog leaping
splash
One Man's Moon, 2003
Cid Corman
Commentary: It's nicer, because you don't need so many words, you don't need so many syllables to say; but it's word for word the Japanese. But I also point out by the structure that it's one phrase that's really all modifying the word "splash." [Reads the poem again.] And that deepens the poem -- if people read. But, of course, many people don't. There's far more happening than is on the surface; and you have to read the poems over and over again; and you must say them aloud, if you want to understand the work: My poems are meant to be voiced -- all of them; and you won't get the layout of the poems without feeling that. I don't know when I start a poem what it's going to say: I have no idea. I'm always surprised...-- excerpted from Cid Corman with Philip Rowland: The Conversation Continues
FYI: For more about Cid Corman's view of translation, To the Lighthouse: The Art of Translation
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