Commentary (II)
Hideo Yokokawa

Reprint from the English/Japanese bilingual book of poetry
"Carrying Water in a Sieve - by Jeanne Shannon"
with Japanese translation by Hideo Yokokawa
published by Hy H. Yokokawa & Partners, Tokyo
in July 2002

The aspect of Jeanne Shannon's work that dazzled me first of all was its unique lexicon. It presents so many words related to the technical terms of physics, chemistry and space and the natural sciences which are usually only distantly related to the standard/traditional world of poetry. In her work, however, I found those wordings were used by her quite freely in a manner both very exact and at the same time very natural. From the time when I first encountered her work, I have felt overwhelmed by her command of language and concept.

It is not possible to find this type and style of poetry in the Japanese literature of our region. This recognition made me move to introduce her work to this country, particularly to our younger generation but also to draw the attention of those modern poets whose work is flooded with murmur/grumble, lacking in any remarkable technique of expression. This is the foundation of this publication.

However, I thought it was too dangerous for me to make such judgements alone and proceed with the above project by simply reading a very limited number of poems by this poet. Therefore, when two years ago I visited the poet Phyllis Hoge Thompson, Professor Emerita for the University of Hawaii, who knows Jeanne Shannon very well, I asked her to comment frankly on the above observation regarding her work She agreed with my opinion perfectly and offered another evaluation of her own; that Jeanne Shannon's work had another distinctive quality in regard to its attentiveness to the natural world. Although at first I didn't understand this point of view, as I had read just a few poems by her at random, my increasing familiarity with her work brought me into absolute agreement with her. Last year, I visited the United States twice and was able to meet and talk with Jeanne Shannon and Phyllis Hoge Thompson and to obtain a copy of the manuscripts recorded in this book, which covers a part of Shannon's world.

Apart from the above 2 points; i.e., the unique lexicon and the attentiveness to the natural world; I want to record here two of my own observations that I obtained and enjoyed in my translation process: One is clean humor backed by intelligence, and another is space to be called leap or pause sometimes lying between each stanza, line or word. Further, I believe that the readers will find out that embodiment, abstract and surrealism are interwoven unintentionally in many of places of her work, in which I felt a kind of the soul of language during my translation.

Yesterday, on May 18th, I finished my translation of the whole manuscripts in my hands. At the same time I wrote a poem "Monologue" in celebration of the successful completion of my labor. I am very happy to feel that Phyllis Hoge Thompson, Jeanne Shannon and I have finished our project together like this. Of course we three do not aim at any fame or financial gain but do hope that this book of poetry will be read widely in Japan.

(May 19, 2002)

　

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