Bard Translation and Translatability Initiative and Asian Studies Program Present
What Poetry Does in Contemporary Japan: Translating, Publishing, and Writing between Languages
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Olin Humanities, Room 205
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Dr. Jordan Smith, Josai International University
Japanese poetry is often associated with traditional verse (haiku, tanka) and Zen Buddhism. Japan today is understood in vastly different ways—famed as much for the sophisticated metropolitan capital and anime as it is for its traditional and natural beauty. The “translationscape” of Japanese poetry reveals massive gaps between the texts and authors that reach Western languages and the vivacious, roiling, even overwhelming world of Japanese poetry today. Contemporary poetry, in its many (and competing) forms, plays a vital role of resistance in a nation where discourses of economic stagnation threaten to define an era. Poetry practitioners treat their arts (writing and performing) with reverence while fully utilizing all arts and media available. Drawing on his experience editing the Tokyo Poetry Journal, building bridges between anglophone and Japanese poetry worlds, writing bilingual poetry, and translating luminaries in the making, Prof. Smith’s talk blends ethnography of the contemporary world of Japanese poetry with readings of poems by the current cutting edges—tracing their jagged contours and trajectories into and outside of various spaces of poetry.Jordan A. Y. Smith writes poetry and comic theater and has translated poetry by Yoshimasu Gozo (for Poetry Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal), Mizuta Noriko (The Road Home 2015; Sea of Blue Algae, 2016), Nomura Kiwao, Misumi Mizuki, Fuzuki Yumi, and Usami Kohji, and prose fiction from Alberto Fuguet and Fernando Iwasaki. He is currently an associate professor in international humanities at Josai International University, and has previously taught comparative literature, Japanese studies, literary translation, and English at California State University Long Beach, UCLA, Roger Williams University, UC Riverside, Pepperdine University, and Korea University.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Olin Humanities, Room 205