Dannyreviews: Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! by Robin D. Gill
Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! is a collection of a thousand haiku about sea cucumbers (namako), given both in Japanese and in translation, and with extensive commentary. It ranges from the works of classical masters such as Issa and Basho down to contemporary poems taken from the Internet, along with a few of Gill's own.
a few drinks
and i am a sea slug
out of water - Gijô (1741)
Topsy Turvy 1585modernhaiku.org wrote:Anyone really interested in the power of season words...should take up this book of nearly 1,000 poems on the little critters with gusto. For in its pages these poems come to life as no other haiku translated from Japanese have ever come to life before.
In 1585, Luis Frois, a 53 year old Jesuit who spent all of his adult life in Japan listed 611(!) ways Europeans and Japanese were contrary to one another. Robin D. Gill, a 53 year old writer who spent most of his adulthood in Japan, translates these topsy-turvy claims –]Fly-ku!Fly-ku! introduces hundreds of Japanese haiku about flies, fly-swatters and fly-paper, scores of which are by Issa (1763-1827), whose famous ku about a fly begging not to be swatted has long been controversial because of its alleged maudlinity and anthropomorphism
