Robin D. Gill
Encyclopedia
Robin D. Gill, born in 1951 at Miami Beach, Florida
, USA, and brought up on the island of Key Biscayne
in the Florida Keys
, is a bilingual author in Japanese
and English
, as well as a nature writer, maverick authority on the history of stereotypes of Japanese identity
and prolific translator of, and commentator on Japanese poetry
, especially haiku
and senryū
. He writes haiku in Japanese under the haigō (haikai pen-name) Keigu (敬愚).
in 1968 learning etching
and Spanish
, before proceeding to Georgetown University
to study International Politics
at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
. He graduated in 1976, and spent the following two academic years doing graduate work in Honolulu at the Department of Far Eastern Languages, University of Hawaii
. He worked at the Japan Translation Center from 1978 to 1980. He then was employed as Acquisitions Editor, translation checker and foreign secretary for the Tokyo publishing firm Kōsakusha. From 1990, he simultaneously worked for a new publishing house, editions Papyrus. He returned to the United States in 1998, and after an interlude of several months in the following year researching, among other things, Luís Fróis
at the British Library
, he returned to the United States and set up his own publishing company. He is now producing a long sequence of books that endeavour to travel over, in thematic sequences, the highways and byways of Japanese poetry.
or seasonal keyword thematics in traditional Japanese poetry, ranging widely over haiku
, senryū
, waka
and kyōka (狂歌:crazy poems), concentrating in each successive book on sub-themes. For example, the sea-cucumber, namako, ignored in the standard histories of the genre, nonetheless attracted numerous poets and Gill provides the reader with several hundred examples, glossing each with erudite annotations on the cultural setting and natural history of the humble namako, He has done similar delvings into the extensive poetic sub-culture built over centuries on the Japanese fly (hae). His most recent books explore the more familiar world of the cherry tree (sakura) and the ritual cherry blossom viewing (hanami
). In his books, the poems are arranged in thematic chains, with multiple translations that enable the reader to see the variety of potential readings to be elicited from an otherwise simple, straightforward set of verses. His translations are accompanied by the original Japanese texts, with transliteration
s into Roman characters
.
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, USA, and brought up on the island of Key Biscayne
Key Biscayne
Key Biscayne is an island located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. It is the southernmost of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast of Florida, and lies south of Miami Beach and southeast of Miami...
in the Florida Keys
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...
, is a bilingual author in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, as well as a nature writer, maverick authority on the history of stereotypes of Japanese identity
Nihonjinron
The term literally means theories/discussions about the Japanese. The term refers to a genre of texts that focuses on issues of Japanese national and cultural identity. The literature is vast, ranging over such varied fields as sociology, psychology, history, linguistics, philosophy, and even...
and prolific translator of, and commentator on Japanese poetry
Japanese poetry
Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang Dynasty. It took them several hundred years to digest the foreign impact, make it a part of their culture and merge it with their literary tradition in their mother tongue, and begin to develop the diversity of their native poetry. For...
, especially haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
and senryū
Senryu
is a Japanese form of short poetry similar to haiku in construction: three lines with 17 or fewer total morae . Senryū tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and senryū are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are more serious...
. He writes haiku in Japanese under the haigō (haikai pen-name) Keigu (敬愚).
Academic and work curriculum
On completing High School, Gill spent a year in Mexico CityMexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
in 1968 learning etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, before proceeding to Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
to study International Politics
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
. He graduated in 1976, and spent the following two academic years doing graduate work in Honolulu at the Department of Far Eastern Languages, University of Hawaii
University of Hawaii
The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...
. He worked at the Japan Translation Center from 1978 to 1980. He then was employed as Acquisitions Editor, translation checker and foreign secretary for the Tokyo publishing firm Kōsakusha. From 1990, he simultaneously worked for a new publishing house, editions Papyrus. He returned to the United States in 1998, and after an interlude of several months in the following year researching, among other things, Luís Fróis
Luís Fróis
Luís Fróis was a Portuguese missionary.He was born in Lisbon and in 1548 joined the Society of Jesus . In 1563, he came to Japan to engage in missionary work, and in the following year arrived in Kyoto, meeting Ashikaga Yoshiteru who was then Shogun...
at the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, he returned to the United States and set up his own publishing company. He is now producing a long sequence of books that endeavour to travel over, in thematic sequences, the highways and byways of Japanese poetry.
Recent work
Gill's recent work focuses on kigoKigo
is a word or phrase associated with a particular season, used in Japanese poetry. Kigo are used in the collaborative linked-verse forms renga and renku, as well as in haiku, to indicate the season referred to in the stanza...
or seasonal keyword thematics in traditional Japanese poetry, ranging widely over haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
, senryū
Senryu
is a Japanese form of short poetry similar to haiku in construction: three lines with 17 or fewer total morae . Senryū tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and senryū are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are more serious...
, waka
Waka (poetry)
Waka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...
and kyōka (狂歌:crazy poems), concentrating in each successive book on sub-themes. For example, the sea-cucumber, namako, ignored in the standard histories of the genre, nonetheless attracted numerous poets and Gill provides the reader with several hundred examples, glossing each with erudite annotations on the cultural setting and natural history of the humble namako, He has done similar delvings into the extensive poetic sub-culture built over centuries on the Japanese fly (hae). His most recent books explore the more familiar world of the cherry tree (sakura) and the ritual cherry blossom viewing (hanami
Hanami
is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers, "flower" in this case almost always meaning cherry blossoms or ume blossoms. From the end of March to early May, sakura bloom all over Japan, and around the first of February on the island of Okinawa...
). In his books, the poems are arranged in thematic chains, with multiple translations that enable the reader to see the variety of potential readings to be elicited from an otherwise simple, straightforward set of verses. His translations are accompanied by the original Japanese texts, with transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
s into Roman characters
Romanization of Japanese
The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...
.
List of works
- Omoshiro Hikakubunka-kō, Kirihara Shoten, Tokyo 1984
- Han-nihonjinron, Kōsaku-sha, Tokyo 1985
- Nihonjinron tanken, TBS Britannica, Tokyo 1985
- Goyaku Tengoku, Hakusuisha, Tokyo 1987
- Kora!mu, Hakusuisha, Tokyo 1989
- Eigo-wa Konna-ni Nippongo!, Chikuma Bunko 1989
- Chūgoku no Maza Gusu, Kitazawa Shoten, Tokyo 1991
- Orientalism & Occidentalism: Is the Mistranslation of Culture Inevitable?, Paraverse Press, Florida 2004. , ISBN 0974261823, 9780974261829
- Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! 1,000 holothurian haiku, Paraverse Press, Florida 2003. ISBN 0974261807, 9780974261805
- Fly-ku! to swat or not to swat, Paraverse Press, Florida 2004. ISBN 097426184X, 9780974261843
- Topsy-Turvy 1585 : a translation and explication of Luis FroisLuís FróisLuís Fróis was a Portuguese missionary.He was born in Lisbon and in 1548 joined the Society of Jesus . In 1563, he came to Japan to engage in missionary work, and in the following year arrived in Kyoto, meeting Ashikaga Yoshiteru who was then Shogun...
S.J.'s Tratado :611 ways Europeans and Japanese were contrary, Paraverse Press, Florida 2004. ISBN 0974261815, 9780974261812 - The Fifth Season: Poems for the Re-creation of the World, Paraverse Press, Florida, 2007. ISBN 0974261890
- Cherry Blossom Epiphany: The poetry and philosophy of a flowering tree, Paraverse Press, Florida 2007.ISBN 0-9742618-6-6 (pbk) 978–0-9742618-6-7
- The Woman Without a Hole - & Other Risky Themes from Old Japanese Poems, Paraverse Press, 504 pages, Florida, 2007, ISBN 0974261882, 9780974261881. Alternate title: Octopussy, Dry Kidney & Blue Spots - Dirty Themes from 18-19c Japanese Poems, ISBN 0974261858, 9780974261850
- Mad in Translation, Paraverse Press, 740 pages, 2009 - ISBN 0974261874, 9780974261874; a shorter version, at 460 pages exists of this text, with ISBN 0974261831, 9780974261836
- Kyōka , Japan's Comic Verse: A Mad in Translation Reader, Paraverse Press, 300 pages, 2009, ISBN 0984092307, 9780984092307
- A Dolphin in the Woods, In the Floods A Wild Boar: Composite Translation, Paraversing & Distilling Prose, Paraverse Press, 248 pages, Florida, 2009. ISBN 0-9840923 -1-5 (pbk), 978-0-9840923–1-4
- The Cat Who Thought Too Much: An Essay Into Felinity, Paraverse Press, 312 pages, Florida, 2010, ISBN 9780984092321