Tag: literary criticism

Original Essay: “Fishing for Bashos: Interpretive Communities and Haiku in English” at Modern Haiku

Posted on by Stewart

I’m very excited to announce the publication of this scholarly essay, which is based on a presentation I gave at Haiku North America last year.

In short, the essay tackles translation, Stanley Fish’s idea of Interpretive Communities, and

I had a blast doing the presentation and writing the essay. Who knew literary criticism could be so fun?! (Okay, maybe I’m just a nerd.)

What makes it doubly exciting is that the whole essay is available to read for free(!) on the Modern Haiku website as a PDF: Fishing for Bashos: Interpretive Communities and Haiku in English.

Give it a read, and I’d love to hear what anyone thinks about it, either here in the comments or via e-mail.

Original Fiction: The Robotic Poet Reads Bashō

Posted on by Stewart

I’m pleased to announce that Beyond Borderlands, a hybrid academic/creative arts magazine, has just published “The Robotic Poet Reads Bashō,” a story of haiku criticism, parallel worlds, Thoreau, and the nature of reality. (I wrote the thing. In case that wasn’t clear.)

Here’s a brief teaser:

The robotic poet (who refers to herself in the third person, for reasons which may become clear) has been reading translations of Bashō, and has discovered two things in his work:

First, that our understanding of reality is largely a consensus agreement.

Second, and more importantly, that poetry can serve as a gateway to an infinite number of realities.

It may be tempting to attribute these little epiphanies to the vagaries of translation—to differences in interpretation and idiosyncratic syntax choices. (The robotic poet’s children were of the opinion that we all saw a single reality, but children have not lived. Not fully. The robotic poet herself remains convinced there is more going on.)

Intrigued? Confused? You don’t even?

You can read the rest of the story at Beyond Borderlands here: “The Robotic Poet Reads Bashō”.