Toward
the Starry Sky -
the haiku of Hashimoto Takako (1899 - 1963)
Debra
Woolard Bender
with Eiko Yachimoto
Those readers familiar with the
literary history of Japan will already know that Japanese women have
historically enjoyed reputations as major writers and innovators. Women
contributed substantially to the Manyoshu and other classic collections of
poetry. Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book is a classic, and Lady Murasaki's
eleventh-century masterpiece, The Tale of Genji, is regarded as the first
great novel in world literature. These and other women writers have had a
decisive impact on the development of Japan's literary and aesthetic traditions,
yet the brilliant prominence of the earlier writers may have obscured the
national decline in status of women's writing.
When the haiku
movement first began, a major aim was to take poetry out from the court and to
bring it to the common people. Due to strong gender-designated cultural
influences which prevailed even in written language, and haiku was basically
regarded as a man's poetry. Traditionally, women were not included in haiku
circles and early on, the development of a "17 Rules" system forbade
male haijin to befriend the fair sex poets. Although the great master, Basho,
had a few female disciples, feudal period women did not enjoy the freedoms known
by men. By the Meiji era (1868-1912), the government had established an official
'good wives and wise mothers' policy toward the their status. However, in the
Meiji period, the nation was coming out of feudalism, and women were producing
literary works of excellence. A strong feminist uprising began in about 1911,
impacting the proletarian literary movement of the 1920s. Wars between 1931 -
1945 continued to impact these cultural changes. In those exceptional times,
exceptional women poets shone brightly. A growth in women's journals, and the
inclusion of women in literary journals, brought increasing sophistication among
female readers. A second feminist movement took place in the 1960's and 70's,
but a social imbalance still lingers today in a culture where women's haiku are
sometimes dismissed as unimportant by the use of a derogatory label, 'kitchen
haiku'. Ironically, while her horizons may been limited or confined in
comparison to the man's world, a woman's necessary focus on the seemingly
unimportant and subjects of mundane, everyday life is inherently elemental to
haiku.
One important
haiku female poet who did not follow the road of "womens' haiku," ,
but who broke out of that categorization to entering and following the road
where "mans' haiku" prevailed, was Hashimoto Takako. Using
her status and influence to encourage others and to found and establish haiku
magazines, her own powerfully
brilliant, polished work has made her famous -- a beloved woman poet of modern
Japan.
tsuki
ichirin toko ichirin hikari au
One
moon, one frozen lake
shine upon each other.
Marriage
in the year, 1920 to Hashimoto
Yutaka Jiro (1888 - 1937), a successful and wealthy man who worked in
the contract building industry, took the 19 year old bride from Tokyo to Ogura,
where her husband had designed and built a stylish tower mountain villa.
The English-architectured picture-book house set into the mountain promontory,
overlooked the white sands of the sea, and their ranch was replete with fruit
and nut orchards. Jiro,
a loving, understanding and magnanimous husband, encouraged the cultural
interest and growth of his lovely wife, a marriage which might be envied and
admired by others. It was at the Ogura villa that Hashimoto
Takako was initiated into haiku. As a disciple of Sugita
Hisajo of the Hototogisu School, she would be the first among modern women
haiku poets to receive her training from another woman. Takako would prove to be
a wise pupil, crafting her haiku and calligraphy with fine beauty.
manjyushage
oritaruteni zo hidati moyu
when
I snap...the
spider lily
.a
fire burns...in
my hands
Kazeon Sugoi
writes, in a website newsletter about life in Osaka, Japan, that the manjyushage
is the same flower known as "higanbana," or as it is known in English,
the red spider lily. Manjyushage has
strong Buddhist associations and the vivid fiery bloom appears in the serene
season of autumnal equinox. Autumn is a season of many festivals to thank gods
or spirits about the rich harvests. The manjyushage appear during higan,
a seven day cermonial time when families traditionally visit ancestral
gravesites. Kazeon writes that it is also termed shibito bana (a flower
for the dead), tengai bana (in English this might be translatied to
something like a flower for the end of this world), yuurei bana (ghost
flower) and sutego bana (a flower like a deserted child)". The
flowers disappear after higan, and by September, composure returns to the land
and peoples. The bloom of the flower, held in the hands would appear in likeness
to a miniature bonfire. In that there is a tradition of a disciple breaking or
snapping a branch in honor of the master, I wonder if this haiku, with its
religious and fire associations, might be a tribute to one of Takako's teachers.
The
Hashimoto home, where artists, singers and writers were entertained and
encouraged, came to represent Ogura as Kitakyushu's cultural salon. And, in that
era, because of the regional emergence of several major women haiku poets in the
predominantly male genre, Kitakyushu stood on the cutting edge of this cultural
change. A major haiku event, a meeting and ginko would be hosted on March 25,
1922 arranged through Hiroshi Noboru Ota and Sugita Hisajo to be held at the home
of Jiro and Hashimoto Takako. Hototogisu's Director and Editor, Kyoshi Takahama
(then 49 years of age) led the event. After this first dramatic and historic
meeting of Hisajo and Takako, Jiro recommended his wife to study with the dojin.
A
camellia, fallen to the hearth
is thrown into the fire.
The
camellia haiku was written during the haiku event when a bloom had fallen from
the vase on the fireplace as Kyoshi spoke. As the crimson flower was quietly
cast into the fire, Kyoshi did not overlook the instant, the scenery becoming a
picture as the haiku was born of the moment. Seeing and understanding Kyoshi's
haiku as the model, must have deeply impressed Takako, awakening her interest in
haiku.
Sugita
Hisajo, being a conscientious poet/artist for whom nothing was executed
irresponsibly or with an apathetic attitude, was an important influence on her
student. Takako's haiku would be published in 1927, in Hisajo's magazine,
"Hanagoromo", drawing praise from Kyoshi Takahama. Yukuhashi
Takeshita (1887 - 1951), would also be an influence on the budding poet's
haiku.
how large...the
dandelion flower!
...summer...comes to
Ezo
(publ.,
Hanagoromo, 1927)
While
retaining their mountain villa residence, a move to Osaka in 1929 gave Takako
opportunity to continue discipleship under Kyoshi. That year, in the island's
central meeting hall, she would meet haijin and future mentor, Yamaguchi Seishi.
At 29 years of age, Takako was becoming well-known for the beauty, drama and
boldness of her poetry.
A flash of
lightning in the north,
and I look up to the northern sky.
In 1930,
Kyoshi's second daughter, Hoshino Tatsuko (1903-?) had founded a haiku magazine,
Tamamo ("Seaweed"), which at that time was exclusively for women.
Tatsuko joined her father's Hototogisu's coterie in 1932, becoming a leading
poet along with Nakamura Teijo. During the following two years, Hashimoto Takako
and Mitsuhashi Takajo joined the high ranks. This illustrious group of four
soundly established women in the genre of haiku which had been for dominated by
male poets.
cage of
fireflies
I shake them up for light
because they are dark
The fireflies in
a cage gone dark;
shaking them up, I make them light.
While her first
teacher, Sugita Hisajo, had promoted women's haiku, a somewhat separated circle
from the main body of haiku poets, Takako broke from that limitation, and also
from mentors, Kyoshi and Shuoshi. Author, poet and translator, Kenneth Rexroth,
in "The Burning Heart; Women Poets of Japan," wrote that Hototogisu,
through its orthodoxy, "was characterized by a world of lightness and
domestic happiness." Yamaguchi Seishi wrote "there are two
possible roads for the female writer: the road to be the woman and the road to
be the man. The road to be the woman is the road which is praised in the man,
but the road to be the man burns the will and the flame is above the man."
A rare woman haiku poet, Takako chose to "walk the road to be a man"
as a writer. It might also be mentioned that the brilliant, flickering flame of
Hisajo had surely lit a steady fire in one of her finest disciples.
The heroine's
death ends the novel;
some walnuts in the fireplace.
Takako
used her influence to found and establish haiku magazines and to encourage
others. In 1935, on the recommendation of Seishi, she separated from Hototogisu
and joined the the "Japanese Andromeda" haiku coterie of the cherry
tree child. After World War II, Yamaguchi Seishi became one of the most
important poets of Kyoshi's Hototgisu school. Takako became his disciple in
1945, and in 1948, joined with him in founding the magazine, Tenro
("Sirius" or "Sky Wolf"), which is still in publication. The
membership's number included Saito Sanki, Hirahuta Seito and Alamoto Fusi.
From 1950, she superintended the "Seven Heavenly Bodies" (Pleiades?).
Apples
from the heap
flood toward a starry sky.
The
contemporary poet, Tsuda Kiyoka first wrote haiku at Takako's home in Nara,
where she became her disciple. In 1951, Kiyoka won the Tenro prize and joined
that coterie, going on to become the leader of Shara in 1971, and founding Kei
no Ka in 1986.
kiri
no maka higurashi naku o ake to suru
Out
of fog, to the cicada's clear call
..........................comes
the dawn.
Takako was a
family woman with four daughters. When her beloved husband, Jiro, became ill,
she took care of him. He passed away on September 30, 1937. Takako was present
at his death at the lakeside mountain villa at Lake Nojiri. She later wrote the
following haiku about that black letter day. In the same year, war with China
began.
One chair I set
out in the moonlight
returned on a trembling wave.
(1941)
Mainichi
As
an artist with words, Takako defined haiku in her own personal style while
employing subjects traditional to haiku. Within this framework, she was able to
develop an innovative poetic ambience. The quality and power of her poetry would
inspire women of modern times, especially those of post-war Japan. After the
World War II, hard times were experienced by all including Takako. The intensity
of post-war trauma was released in poetry. In both joy or sorrow, her haiku show
strength and courage as she valiantly and purposefully persisted in her writing.
ryuto
ni kotoba takushite tsuki hanatsu
My
words entrusted
to
a floating lantern
...........................pushed
off...they drift away.
Leading
Western author and poet, William J. Higginson, in "The Haiku Handbook"
(p. 36-37), notes that Takako, herself, figures as an active participant in many
of her poems, the first of those being published in 1967.
Foxtail millet
in bloom; how lonely I feel
to the tip of each hair.
The flower of
the third haiku is probably the foxtail millet. How
melancholy the poem; the author's loneliness is felt to every end of the being
and then beyond - into the natural world. Her perspective takes us from her
visual range "outside" her person: the flower, to the inside mind and
emotion, expanding to the body's physical furthest boundaries - the tips of the
hair, which causes the readers to enter in, taking the emotive content into
another realm beyond the past, beyond the present, into an emptiness beyond the
flower and the printed page. While emotion is not generally directly expressed
in haiku, "autumn loneliness" and its variations is traditional kigo.
In Takako's haiku, the depth of loneliness changes dramatically through a
skillful melding of the two images, image and emotion expanding limitlessly.
Surrealism was introduced to
Japan in the early 1930's, greatly influencing the modern poetry, especially in
the late 1960's and 70's. Kenneth Rexroth writes in "The Burning Heart;
Women Poets of Japan," that "so long as haiku was a substitute for a
sensuous diary, it never had enough power to transform reality." He
contrasts the poetry of Yagi Mikajo, whose modern haiku is influenced by
surrealism, with Nakamura Tiejo and Hoshino Tatsuko of Hotogisu's school.
ubuguruna
natsu no dotou wo yokomuki ni
A baby carriage,
parallel
to imminent, roiling summer waves.
While Takako writes this haiku
in the traditional method of realism it exudes the surreal mystery and
nightmarish images of French artist, Rene Magritte's (1898-1967) whose works
portray dreamlike
psychological images; disturbing settings painted in a realistic manner.
Takako's visually geometric haiku is rife with the uneasiness of unanswered
questions: Why is the stroller alone on a beach so close to the dangerous tide?
Is there a baby in it? Has the stroller been abandoned? More frightening, has a
helpless infant been abandoned? Where are the parents? Has something bad
happened? Doesn't anyone care? Nakimura Yutaka, writing in "Haiku
and Nature" indicates that Takako
had probably written this haiku on Miyukigahama Beach in Odawara, near Tokyo,
where her third daughter lived. At that time, the beach was called "Arakunohama",
meaning "a beach with forever violent waves." The husband of her
eldest daughter had died before the poem was composed, and it was just after the
end of World War II. She may well have been worried about the future of her
children and grandchildren, expressing her anxieties through this
poem.
into
a white peach
the edge of a blade is thrust
cutting the seed
In 1963,
Hashimoto Takako
was found to have cancer of the gall bladder and the liver. One beautiful haiku
life came to a close, yet leaving a legacy in her wealth of poetry while greatly
increasing recognition for women poets in Japan and the world. The fifth
collection of her poetry, "Life's End," was published in 1965 by
Kodakowa Publishing Comany, Ltd. Five volumes of her haiku were published during
Takako's lifetime.
mackerel sky;
going out, I shall soon
become homesick
More haiku
by Hoshino Takako:
araigami
yuku tokoro mina shizuku shite
Fresh-washed
hair
where'er I go, trickles left behind.
Hydrangea...the
letters I received
yesterday, fading away.
all
plucked off
a chicken's feathers lying
under a winter moon
hi
o keseba jimushi no yami o isshku ni
Light's
out -- a ground beetle
the darkness, one color
setsugen
no kukuru ni hi naki sori ni iru
frozen field
and I in a sleigh
without light
taki karate
yo-yo no gekoo iwa nishinu
Fountain dry,
the night
of lunar light pierces rocks.
yameru te ni
nosete fuji-busa amarikeri
in the hand of
the disabled
a branch of glicinia, a heavy load
Next:
R
Credits:
Definitions:
manjyushage/higanbana
(higan: a Buddhist spring or autumn equinox observation of 7 days; bana:
flower). Lycoris radiata — (Red) Spider Lily. The flower appears in
the autumn and is associated with the tradition of visiting ancestral
graves during each higan. The English term for this flower is "spider
lily" and less used, "naked lady" and "storm
lily" or "hurricane lily (Florida, US)." The bulb is
poisonous, but is soaked to remove toxicity in obtaining the starch for eating
purposes. Lycoris
species were once planted around rice paddies and house walls to ward off mice
and other pests. Today they grow wild in tangled clumps, especially along river
banks. In many Chinese languages, Lycoris
species have common names translating to "stone garlic", a reference
to their onion-like bulbs. All species contain the poisonous alkaloid lycorine. L.
radiata is called chung kwai fa in Cantonese, implying the grim jest
that anyone who eats it in mistake for garlic will fall prey to Chung Kwai, who
captures ghosts.
References:
(1)
pg. 55, Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master,
ed. and trans, with notes by Patricia Donegan & Yoshie Isibashi Tuttle
Publishing, 1998.
(2)
pg. 85, ibed
(3) Be
a Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women's Literature
(University of Hawaii Press) 1997 Paperback 273pp.
(4) Joe LaPenta, review
for Mainichi Daily News, 1995 for:
A
long rainy season: Haiku & Tanka: Contemporary Japanese Women's
Poetry, Volume 1 (1994) Other
side River Contemporary Japanese Women's Poetry, Volume 2 (1995)
Manifestations
of Gender Distinction in the Japanese Language, Alexander
Schonfeld,
The Haiku
Handbook, How to Write, Share and Teach Haiku, William J. Higginson with Penny
Harter, Kodansha International, 1985
Wind
from Japan 92 -My favorites in Osaka and Japan: Higanbana, Kazeon
Sugoi, Osaka, JP
Women Poets of
Japan, Kenneth Rexroth & Ikuko Atsumi, New Directions Paperbook 527, 1982.
Hakata
* Kitakyushu Historical Series No.13
- The
Women Associated with No.13 " Tower Mountain Villa ", Reed
Publishing Company; a panel discusses the life and work of Hashimoto Takako
(Japanese), haiku poet, and also her relationship with Sugita Hisajo and Yukuhashi
Takeshita.
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