#Geoffrey Bownas

[noosphe-re]

[rustinged]

Tag 9 people you wanna know better!

MWAHH ty @double7am , I hope to deepen our mutualship as well -o-

fav color: dark green! browns! slightly worn black!

currently reading: Japanese Rainmaking and Other Folk Practices by Geoffrey Bownas (physical book!); Unless it Moves the Human Heart by Roger Rosenblatt (online pdf on my phone to pass the times!)

last songs: I -.- it’s been just a lot of misc Japanese and Korean songs, a lot of jung seung hwan in the nights as I get ready for bed

last series/show: I’m not watching too many atm but I recently finished I promised you the moon which had me thoroughly entertained <3

last movie: the original muppet movie!

currently working on: ahhh I keep saying I’m writing but -.- I haven’t written in a while as I’m in a big big creative block </3 I’m working on living as bravely as I can!

I tag~ @regulations @germoflove @bigday4grimley @feversxmirrors @lipstickleatherdyke @burningcandles @jazaa @raspberrjes @fenbog !!

[heavenlyyshecomes]

March Reads!! 💙

The Selected Poems of Rosario Castellanos tr. Magda Bogin (pdf/epub)

Women Poets of China tr. Kenneth Rexroth and Long Chung (pdf)

The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse tr. Anthony Thwaite and Geoffrey Bownas (epub)

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo (epub)

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple (epub)

The Selected Poems of Li Po tr. David Hinton (epub)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (epub)

The Blood of Adonis: Transpositions of Selected Poems of Adonis (pdf)

Fish in Exile by Vi Khi Nao (pdf)

Feb reads

[anna-the-acadademic]

25 Things to Read by People of Color

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry (1995)

A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth (1993)

Various poetry by Audre Lorde

God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (1997)

Hunger, Roxane Gay (2017)

Various poetry by Langston Hughes

Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel (1989)

Various poetry by Maya Angelou

Memoirs of a Women Doctor, Nawal El Saadawi (1958)

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie (1981)

Mission to the Volga by Ahmad Ibn Fadlan (2017)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass (1845)

Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979)

Various poetry by Octavio Paz

Various poetry by Pablo Neruda

Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih (1966)

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison (1977)

The Girl Who Played Go, Shan Sha (2001)

The Glass Palace, Amitav Ghosh (2000)

The Guide, R.K. Narayan (1958)

The Interpreter Of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)

The Penguin book of Japanese Verse, collected by Geoffrey Bownas (1964)

The Story Of My Experiments With The Truth, Mahatma Gandhi (1927)

The Woman in the Dunes,  Kōbō Abe (1962)

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958)

[spelllingandthemysteryschool]

do you have any book recs? 😊

sure! this is a little all over the place i know but recently i have been reading / rereading

the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado

coming to writing and other essays by hélène cixous

bluets by maggie nelson

howl’s moving castle by diana wynne jones

the new urban crisis: how our cities are increasing inequality, deepening segregation, and failing the middle class—and what we can do about it by richard florida

the awakening by kate chopin

crier’s war by nina varela

the penguin book of japanese verse tr. geoffrey bownas & anthony thwaite

[poetpls]

Ono Komachi

Was is that I went to sleep Thinking of him That he came in my dreams? Had I known it a dream I should have not waken.

(trans. Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite.)

[delicatemelancholia-blog-blog]

Spring rain: Soaking on the roof A child's rag ball - Yosa Buson, trans. by Geoffrey Bownas

[rustinged]

ty @feversxmirrors MWAHHHH

relationship status: sigh <3

favorite color: green! brown! yellow! rusted black! red!

favorite food: really satisfyingly cooked meat paired with its perfect side, sauce, etc

song stuck in your head right now: charmer by stray kids

time: 5:57 pm

dream trip: a trip to meet the friends ive met online

last book i've read: the sword and the mind: the classic japanese treatise on swordsmanship and tactics (interesting so far! im still reading it)

last book i enjoyed reading: japanese rainmaking and other folk practices by geoffrey bownas (i enjoyed it so v much!! i think about and reference it often)

last book i hated reading: uhhh i couldn't tell you? its been a while since i stuck w a book while hating it. about two years ago i read a Bad ya book that made me put down the genre as a whole

bonus questions

next book in line: why are faggots so afraid of other faggots? flaming challenges to masculinity, objectification, and the desire to conform (v excited for this one while also preparing for the horrors!)

favorite thing to cook/bake: there's this chinese (?) pearl pork meatball recipe i pulled from a claire saffitz vid where her and her guest made them and i wanted to try them too. its a multistep process but i suppose its nice to make!

your fav plant/flower found at your childhood home: blue trumpet vines intertwined within an arch built for flowers in my childhood backyard, though it only lead to the air vent

i tag: @germoflove @regulations @bigday4grimley @eaturplantz @whathozier @uglyseason !!

[heavenlyyshecomes]

Ono Komachi, from The Penguin book of Japanese Verse, tr. Geoffrey Bownas & Anthony Thwaite (@hwanghyunjin)

[delicatemelancholia-blog-blog]

Spring rain: Soaking on the roof A child's rag ball - Yosa Buson, trans. by Geoffrey Bownas As the spring rains fall, soaking in them, on the roof, is a child's rag ball. - Yosa Buson, trans. by Harold G. Henderson

the difference in translations is very interesting to me; i wonder what Henderson had to do to fit the poem to a rhyme scheme. i don't recall very well, but someone somewhere mentioned that most translations of old poetry (from other languages into English), especially old Japanese poetry, tend to just...sort of ignore original word choices, and translate the poem to capture the meaning rather than the exact word.  does that make sense? i don't think i'm explaining this very well...

[delicatemelancholia-blog-blog]

Spring rain: In our sedan Your soft whispers. - Yosa Buson, trans. by Geoffrey Bownas

[delicatemelancholia-blog-blog]

Was it that I went to sleep Thinking of him, That he came in my dreams? Had I known it a dream I should not have wakened. - Ono no Komachi, trans. by Geoffrey Bownas