Cirrus@Austlit

Translated from the Japanese by Harold Stewart

Editor's Preface: ... These versions of haiku, like those in the author's previous anthology, A Net of Fireflies (Tuttle, 1960), aim at being creative and interpretive, an attempt to transpose into English verse the poetry rather than the words of the originals. ... the author believes that the first duty of a translator of poetry is to reproduce a parallel poem in his own tongue, calling into play all the resources of the poetic medium.' (pp.[9]-12).

Michael Ackland reports that this work was reprinted ten times in less than a decade. ('Harold Stewart December 14, 1916-August 7, 1995', Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 260: Australian Writers, 1915-1950.( 2002): 367-374). Michael Heyward says that over 50,000 copies were sold. (The Ern Malley Affair (1993): 220).