Talk:Tanka in English
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MET Press as a source
[edit]It seems that a lot of the information in this article comes from material that is self-published on Lulu. I have tagged these citations as dubious for this reason. While I don't doubt that tanka in English exists and merits its own article, there must be less dubious sources out there. MET Press has a history of putting out some rather questionable material (see User:Elvenscout742/Jeffrey Woodward critique). elvenscout742 (talk) 02:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
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13 October 2012 AFD recommendation[edit]See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tanka prose, where it was recommeded by the closing administrator that Tanka prose Tanka prose (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) be merged into Tanka in English. The redirect Tanka prose has been proposed for deletion as not needing to be merged at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2012_October_13#Tanka_prose, so the amount to be merged, according to user:elvenscout742 may be small to none. -- 70.24.247.66 (talk) 04:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
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"Self-published" journals - an oxymoron
[edit]In this edit user Elvenscut742 has removed mention of four periodicals from the 'History' section with the summary: Removing reference to non-notable, self-published (via Lulu) "journals". This user has repeatedly asserted that certain periodicals are "self-published" and has been challenged on more than one occasion to explain the difference between a 'self-published' periodical and any other one, but has on every occasion failed to do so. It has also been repeatedly explained to this editor that all periodicals are in effect 'self-published' but he seems entirely unable to grasp this simple fact. Which printer a publisher selects to print their publication is of absolutely zero relevance. The editor, in addition to repeatedly displaying the depths of his ignorance of publishing, has now shown that he has no knowledge at all of the Japanese and Australian journals, reference to which he has removed from the article. The edit summary clearly indicates that the edit was based on ignorance rather than fact and should be reverted. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 13:59, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
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- Materials published via Lulu Press are self-published. As far as the publisher, Lulu, is concerned, "Modern English Tanka Press" is the name of an author who self-publishes through Lulu. The fact that this author does not pay the publisher is irrelevant, because the publisher is not contractually obliged to actually print the materials unless an order is placed. If you are going to include reference to such self-published works and claim they are "noteworthy", you need to be able to back up their noteworthiness with reference to reliable secondary sources. In fact, use of the peacock word "noteworthy" is not favoured on Wikipedia: if they have won awards or have high sales figures, cite those specifically. Tristan noir, why do you persist in making personal attacks against me? The above list of other pages I have edited, in accordance with consensus, is ridiculous. I removed ONE external link from the Haiga article, and provided a valid reason for it to which you have yet to respond directly. I did not remove ANY external links or references to "noteworthy publications" from the Index of literary terms (which, if consensus stands, will sooner or later be moved to Glossary of literary terms). In the latter I merely made a tiny logical removal in favour of a guideline that Bagworm, and much later you, attempted to unilaterally overrule, as well as broadly-established consensus that the page should not be an indiscriminate list of words. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM MAKING PERSONAL ATTACKS. My "campaign", as you call it, makes up a small part of my editing activities on Wikipedia. I am not trying to be "disruptive" or "counter-productive" -- I am merely trying to enforce Wikipedia policies and guidelines, which you have consistently flouted. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:00, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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For the record, you are entitled to your own opinion, Elvenscout, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Publication can be hard copy or digital (this is the 21st century). Lulu’s slogan (or that of any other POD contractor) is irrelevant and proves nothing, though it is consistent that you would fix upon that part of their slogan that speaks of “Self Publishing” while ignoring the “Book Printing” that immediately follows. Your remark about the POD supplier Lulu getting a “cut of revenue” is likewise of no import. Whether a book or periodical publisher contracts with a POD like Lulu or with a standard book manufacturer/printer, there are still costs incurred; not all is profit. A book manufacturer also receives his cut. The economy is the same, whether the publication is The New Yorker or The Tanka Journal.Tristan noir (talk) 02:00, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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The road ahead for this article
[edit]Two other users (Drmies and LadyofShalott) have expressed an interest in improving this article. I must apologize for my obnoxious overkilling of citation needed tags. My reasoning was that the statements in the article are probably all either OR or spam, and much of it appears to be inaccurate or deliberately obscure (nowhere in the article is the phrase "Imperial Poetry Contest" explained, for example). I contend that most of the material in the article will probably still need to be cut as irrelevant or unverifiable, but at least now there are impartial editors examining the article to help determine that.
I also need to defend my use of the word "advertising" elsewhere. I don't think this article is meant to "advertise" the old, obscure, out-of-print works it mentions. I think it arbitrarily lists those off in order to imply that "tanka in English" has a longer, richer history than it actually does (much of the material appears to have actually been written in Japanese, anyway). That material probably needs to be deleted as irrelevant, to begin with; and what's left (METPress publications, M.Kei, etc.) is here for advertising purposes. Likely none of it is encyclopedic or verifiable. elvenscout742 (talk) 05:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
- I think I'm getting on board with Drmies' removal of the statement that "this article focuses on" original English compositions, and LadyofShalott's addition of the waka category. Ordinarily I would oppose the word "waka" (和歌, "Japanese-language poetry") being applied to English poems, but it actually seems like a very interesting idea to expand this article to discuss the more notable/verifiable phenomenon of translation of waka/tanka into English, so it seems appropriate. Kudos! elvenscout742 (talk) 05:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
A note on Dickins' translation of the Hyakunin Isshu
[edit]Of course I haven't actually read the original translation, which apparently went through a revised edition as well, but Keene's foreword to the most recent published translation as of 2012 specifically cites the Hyakunin Isshu as the first Japanese literary work to be translated into English. The relevant page is available in Google Books' free preview of the book here. I have included this citation in the article, but I have two concerns with the formatting of the reference: (i) the author of the piece I am citing is Keene, but a "Keene, IN McMillan"-style reference seems inappropriate since the book itself is McMillan's, and it is not a collection of essays by different authors -- it just so happens the relevant part is a foreword written by someone else; (ii) the reference, being in the foreword, cites a Roman numeral page number ix. Most of the other references for this article give page numbers in the format "p. 1024", which wouldn't be a problem, but the first Keene reference has "p98", and some others don't give "p" at all. Any ideas which direction we should go with this? elvenscout742 (talk) 04:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
"with tanka often being mistaken for haiku"
[edit]Is this statement backed up in the Goldstein source cited at the end of the sentence? I briefly considered tagging it, but then I noticed that the following clause mentions a specific author. I don't doubt that this actually happens, but it still seems bizarre, and so we probably need a source for it. elvenscout742 (talk) 08:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- Nothing bizarre about it: this is the standard way, to place the citation at the end of the cited sentence. Where else would you put it? The entire sentence derives from that review article. Drmies (talk) 14:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- Sorry, by "bizarre" I didn't mean the citation style; that was just a little unclear. Re-reading the sentence now, I guess it's not a significant problem, but I wasn't sure if Goldstein merely contrasted the nature of haiku and tanka, or if he was also the source for the statement that "tanka are often mistaken for haiku". I thought that the idea that tanka could be mistaken for haiku was in itself bizarre. Sorry again for the lack of clarity. :P elvenscout742 (talk) 15:55, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
- Here's the text in the review: "Western readers, at least those I've encountered in the States, seem to lump all short Japanese poems under the heading of haiku, and I've found it annoying when someone, a friend say, tells me he enjoyed my "haiku." Such has been the sad state of affairs for the few remaining tankaists in the West. This kind of mistake is intolerable - after all, haiku usually deal with nature, usually require a season word, and usually find the poet behind the poem rather than physically present in any of the seventeen syllables." This is presented very anecdotally, and I'm a bit doubtful as to whether Goldstein's "Western readers... seem to lump" can be taken to adequately support the assertion of "tanka often being mistaken for haiku" as we currently now read. In this recent edit I removed the word often (being of the opinion that it was unsupported), but was quickly reverted with the edit summary "not always. that's what the source says". Removing often does not make the sentence mean always! Goldstein statement asserts only that some American readers whom he has encountered seem to lump all Japanese poetry together. In reality, the fact that some readers will mistake one type of poetry for another is quite unremarkable and non-notable. Furthermore, Goldstein was writing some 23 years ago, and what he describes may or may not remain valid. I advocate dropping everything in the sentence after "The popularity of tanka compared to that of haiku has remained minor" while retaining the reference to Goldstein. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 16:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
- Sorry, by "bizarre" I didn't mean the citation style; that was just a little unclear. Re-reading the sentence now, I guess it's not a significant problem, but I wasn't sure if Goldstein merely contrasted the nature of haiku and tanka, or if he was also the source for the statement that "tanka are often mistaken for haiku". I thought that the idea that tanka could be mistaken for haiku was in itself bizarre. Sorry again for the lack of clarity. :P elvenscout742 (talk) 15:55, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Ida Henrietta Bean
[edit]I can find nothing reliable on this supposed first tanka in English collection, besides a publisher and a date. If this M. Kei person, who is all over the internet with tanka documents, would have published their stuff in reliable sources (such as academic journals) we could take some major steps to improve the article. As it is, we can't, and Bean's book seems to have come and gone completely unnoticed by the press and the academic profession. If anyone has anything reliable, I'd love to see it. Drmies (talk) 15:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- Worldcat confirms the publisher & date, but you knew that much already. It only shows 2 libraries owning it.LadyofShalott 17:05, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
- Publisher, date and title can be established, but the questions remain as to whether the poems in the book are actually tanka, whether they were original English compositions, whether the book is an "anthology", and whether it was "the first". I found the source for the statement in the article here (p 5), which reads: Ida Henrietta Bean and published in London, UK, in 1899 by F. T. Neely, a well-known literary publisher of the day. Bean’s work is never cited by scholars and efforts to track down further information about the book and poet failed. No further tanka was published in the UK until 1965.
- The publisher of this article, MET Press, is a bit dodgy, and has been noted for publishing ridiculous fringe nonsense relating to "tanka", and the Wikipedian who wrote the first version of this article appears to be M. Kei, the writer of the piece. This is why my first posting on this page[1] questioned the reliability of the source, and I'm still not sure if we should include a statement in the article that appears to be based solely on one fringe author's conjecture (the wording of the above quote implies that he has not actually read or even seen a copy of the book himself).
- elvenscout742 (talk) 15:43, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
- FINALLY found out what the book actually is. Contrary to what M Kei has claimed several times now, it appears to be "a novel with mystical overtones, set partly in Germany and partly in America". Where it's title comes from, I can't tell, unless I'm willing to fork out 75$ Canadian, but it doesn't appear to have anything to do with Japanese poetry. [2][3] elvenscout742 (talk) 06:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)