WHCacademia Kansho Column

WHCacademia - Kansho Column

Yamaguchi Seishi
Suzuki Masajo

Yamaguchi Seishi

We continue to study and appreciate a single haiku in the Kansho Column: a haiku written by Yamaguchi Seishi:

umi ni dete kogarashi kaeru tokoro nashi
Seishi

umi=the sea/ ni=to/ kogarashi=strong winter wind/ kaeru=return/ tokoro=place nashi=do not exist, not there

Once over the sea,

....winter winds can no longer

...........return home again.
tr. by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks



blowing itself over the sea,

there's no place for winter wind

to go back
version by ST

Seishi wrote this haiku a year before the end of the last war, i.e. 1944. "The Essence of Modern Haiku - 300 Poems by Seishi Yamaguchi, translated by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks", Mangajin, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, 1993" gives some background information on this haiku.

It talks about Seishi's own comment elsewhere that the poem was written "also to mourn the victims of a tragic wartime practice.", meaning kamikaze pilots who were given only enough fuel to reach the enemy warships but not enough to escape or return to the base.

A recent television documentary in the UK showed the true feelings of some of these pilots, their incredible fear, sadness, helplessness and ultimate loneliness, which had been hidden from the eyes and ears of the general public who simply believed in the heroic act and courage of these pilots, which is only one side of the coin. This single poem has the power to correct falsehood and make all other misrepresentations of history (including the recent "Pearl Harbor") pale into insignificance.

Even without this powerful and poignant allusion, the haiku as a piece of poetry moves us mysteriously and to my mind is one of the best haiku ever written.

26/07/01

We have had a good discussion on one of the most famous haiku poems by this poet:

umi ni dete kogarashi kaeru tokoro nashi

Seishi

Once over the sea,
....winter winds can no longer
...........return home again.

tr. by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks

Before we move on to a new haiku to look at, let me wrap up this session by giving you a brief background account of Seishi.

[Note: At WHC, we follow the convention of Japanese Studies in terms of the order of Japanese names, i.e. surname first and given name second]

kanashisa no kiwami ni tare ka kareki oru

1947, Seishi

At the deepest point
of grief, somebody nearby
breaks a withered branch.

Tr. by TK and AHM

Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959) famously called Seishi, one of his more out of the way disciples, "a conquering general of an expedition force on the remote frontier". Reading many haiku poems by Seishi which show daring innovations, new and unique subject matter, unusual style and exotic sensibility, one cannot help feeling more and more puzzled how on earth he was cherished by the "ultra-conservative" Kyoshi.

Seishi was not just one of numerous followers of Kyoshi. With three others whose haigo starts with the letter "S", Shuoshi, Soju and Seiho, he helped create a golden age called "the Four-S Epoch" for the Hototogisu School of which Kyoshi was the founder and leader. I put (above) the adjective "ultra-conservative" in inverted commas qualitatively. It was Kyoshi’s policy decision to take such a firm position in order to deal with the mushrooming new haiku movements, which started to threaten the traditional values and principles regarded by him as essential. In reality, however, Kyoshi was tolerant about innovation and individual differences.

Tehanabi no hi wa mizu ni shite hotobashiru

Seishi

Hand-held sparkler
gushing fiery bubbles –
fire is water.

Tr. by TK and AHM (Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks)

Minegumo no zeiniku Rodan nara kezuru

Seishi

Rodin would have trimmed
these soaring cumulus clouds,
with their excess flesh.

Tr. by TK and AHM

Kyoshi’s characterisation of Seishi is of course not irrelevant, for as a boy of eleven Seishi travelled all alone from his hometown, Kyoto, to Karafuto (Saghalien), north of Hokkaido, which was then very much of "beyond-the-frontier" province, with frequent skirmishes with the Russians. This was in 1912. There he joined his grandfather Wakita Kaichi and started to live with him. He lived there for five years until 1917 when he returned to Kyoto. Kaichi had settled there only a year before to manage, as president, a local newspaper, the Karafuto Nichinichi Shinbun.

One of the reasons why Seishi went to live in such a remote place was his desire to get over the tragedy which had befallen to him a year before. In the summer of 1911, his mother Mineko committed suicide.

Seishi was precocious and started to write haiku when he was only 12. One of the earliest recorded poems goes: -

hitori yuku on-na no tabi ya kanko-dori

Seishi

a solitary journey
of a woman –
cuckoo

This haiku was about the wife of an employee of his grandfather’s newspaper company and not about his own mother. However, it is difficult to imagine that he did not think of his dead mother at all when he composed it.

In 1919, Seishi entered the Liberal Arts Department of the renowned Third High School in Kyoto. In literature he loved tanka, especially those written by Ishikawa Takuboku. Seishi liked Takuboku partly because he thought that the latter was anti-traditional. He also liked the loneliness of life which ran through Takuboku’s tanka.

Seishi joined a haiku club which was jointly run by students of Kyoto University and the Third High School. Hino Sojo was his mentor there. A haiku written by Sojo, which moved Seishi greatly into taking up haiku in earnest goes: -

budoh fukunde mono iu kuchibiru no koh nurete

Sojo

the wet red of the lips --
when she munches grapes
and talks at the same time

Then Seishi met Kyoshi and Shuoshi for the first time in 1922. He entered Tokyo University in the same year and revived the University’s haiku club together with Shuoshi, Tomiyasu Fusei and some other friends. The club was under the direction of Kyoshi.

ryuhyo ya Soya no tonami areyamazu

1926, Seishi

Roughness unceasing –
ice floes caught in clashing tides
in the Soya straits.

Tr. by TK and AHM

Later on, Seishi became one of the most important figures of Kyoshi’s Hototogisu School. After the War, he started his own magazine called "Tenro" (Sirius). His followers included Saito Sanki, Hashimoto Takako, Hirahata Seito and Akimoto Fujio. Seishi is one of the most innovative haiku writers in Japan.

yuki furuna ningen-gyorai ima boroboro

1962, Seishi

Let there be no snow –
for the human torpedo
is now in tatters.

Tr. by TK and AHM

genshi yori ao-umi fuyu mo iro kaezu

1977, Seishi

Green when created,
sea never changing color,
even in winter.

Tr. by TK and AHM

07/08/01

Suzuki Masajo (b. 1906 - )

We shall now look at one of the typical haiku poems written by Masajo, who is a most talented female haiku poet in Japan, certainly one of the most popular, perhaps "the" most popular. She is my most favourite female haiku poet after Chiyo-jo. I attach an account of my own experience with this poet for your background information.

koi wo ete hotaru wa kusa ni shizumi-keri

Masajo

koi=love, love affair/ wo=object particle/ ete=having acquired/ hotaru=firefly or fireflies/ wa=subject particle/ kusa=grasses/ ni=direction particle/ shizumi=sink, lower/ keri=past adverb

fresh in love –
two fireflies have sunk deep
into grass

The Kansho Column is not for translation exercise like the Shiki Translation Project at WHChaikuforum. It is a place to do in-depth analysis, advanced critique and generally appreciate a single poem from all sorts of points of view.

Masajo has often talked about her own haiku. Her essay which touches upon this poem goes in part:

"... I went on a journey to Iwamuro Hot Spa in Niigata to view fireflies . . . Countless fireflies were flying all over the place in the cedar forest . . . I watched them in silence for a while but soon I could not help remembering my own love affairs in the past one after another. Male firefly flies after the female and female firefly waits in the grass. They both emit light from each of their respective bodies and soon the male sinks his body into the female in the grass. And neither of them will fly into the darkness again."

Here you go! Enjoy.

07/08/01

Read: "Fire, Beauty and Haiku - Life, Love and Poetry of Suzuki Masajo"

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