Centenary
of the Death of Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902)
Symbiotic Hope
Eiko
Yachimoto
Yokosuka, JP
One Sunday I took a train to Tokyo to attend a series of talks given by haiku
scholars. Under the cloudy sky, falling leaves of gingko trees led me to the
campus. As I ate manju and drank tea, I learned one great thing: Poetry is the
writing capable of making the dead stand up and walk. Oh, when will I become
capable of this? Let me only write a letter to Shiki today . . .
|
....after
the death
..............a truthful dialogue starts--
.............. I am nodding to the monk's
words
....Toshiko
Makino |
Dear Shiki,
Would you mind proof-reading the following speech for me? I am given the
opportunity to introduce Japanese renku to spouses of engineers and scientists
coming to Japan to attend their Grand Conference. I prepared the following text,
but I am less than 100 per cent sure if this will do.
I was the one in that reading group who admired you as the most democratic poet
of Japan -- the one conducted in the newly opened Women Center in Yokosuka in
1996. Let me add a symbiotic poem "we" -- you and I, created and
published on LYNX
(1) to help you remember me . . .
Shiki -
eiko
Yokosuka - winter forest.....only of masts
...a dry dock from Meiji...solid
masonry
jazz of the new century....swirls....colorful
people
...and yet exists.....a
language divide
warm rain falling -..the beige brown field....of
withered grass
...do you still hear..."the
scissors cutting May roses"?.......(e
& S)
homecoming --...every way I turn....mountains
laugh
...through falling petals...the
last ALBATROSS
conflicts and changes...woven with the immutable...the
Danube flows
...a moon out of...quality
paper
cold and itchy....Hekigotoh....longing
to see us
...purple color reaching black...the
depth of the grapes
(---to be continued)
The Speech Text:
Renku in the rich tradition of
Japanese poetry
About one hundred years ago, one Westerner whose name was Lafcadio Hearn
(1850-1904), came to Japan dispatched by an American newspaper company. He fell
in love with Japan and wrote the following:
Poetry is as universal as air in Japan. It's impossible to spend a day
without hearing or seeing a poem.
He went on to say:
To find a
village where no one composes a poem is unthinkable.
Let's see if his observation is still true today. What is the name of the huge
room for the Center's major programs? Yes, it is Manyo. Manyo,
or "ten thousand leaves," is the name of the oldest collection
of 4500 poems. Those were the poems chosen in eighth century, and Manyo poets
include ancient emperors and farmer-soldiers with no known names.
Now I skip more than one thousand years to talk about another room in this
hotel. Across the hallway from here is a room named Fujinami, which
means "waves of wisteria." I hope you have a chance to see the
purple clusters of wisteria hanging from the pergolas of many parks, or
purple tufts flowing gorgeously amid myriad greens of the mountains. Fujinami
has been a traditional art theme, but I can't help thinking of one young
man every time I see wisteria flowers. Let me introduce two tanka composed by
him 100 years ago:
these clusters
of wisteria in a vase
were long long,
and still, still, not long enough were they
to reach the tatami mats
(tr by S. Goldstein) |
their stems dipped
in refined sake,
these drooping wisteria flowers
have recovered,
have revived!
(tr by S. Goldstein) |
The poet, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), was dying of a painful illness, and he was
intensely gazing at the wisteria from his futon on the tatami-matted floor
of a Japanese room. He could not even turn his body without his sister's help.
He died one year later. Yet
amazingly, from his sick bed, this man in his thirties had vigorously fought and
won the battle to renovate Japanese poetry. He fought the rigid
determinism of the Poetry Bureau of the Imperial Household Agency. He fought
scholars of theories and secret rules because he believed that they put the
wrong emphasis on a poetry of cliché, formalism and restriction. He preached
from a newspaper everyday, admonishing poets not to blindly follow authoritarian
rules. He advocated Manyo style poetry, because ancient Manyo poets freely sang
about the reality of their lives and the true emotion of the people.
He was a man of 100 years
ago, when poetry was as universal as air. He certainly had a broad audience. He
was also determined to save the spirit of poetry from the mediocre renku masters
in town. As much as I love Shiki, he is known as a person who declared that only
the starting verse (hokku) of renku deserves to be called poetry; it was he who
established the hokku as the now famous haiku. I don't think Shiki denied renku
altogether. I would rather like to think that he wanted to correct some
money-oriented renku masters of his time. Japanese haiku poets now consider
Shiki a big, big name, and surprisingly, the irony is that some of them blindly
follow his criticism on renku.
Now, let me come back to the thousand years which I had skipped before. I feel
really lucky to be given this room for the conference because it is named Chitose,
an elegant way of saying one thousand years!!! Needless to say, much happened
between 900 to 1900 which has contributed to the formation of Japanese
aesthetics, and maybe to Japanese formalism, too. One phenomenon, unique to
Japan, is that poetry had been in the center of its cultural values, and often
used by the government as the source of its authority. An emperor often edited,
or took initiative to assign editors, the compilation of a tanka anthology for
his reign. In this situation, poetry matters could become political, and one
genius, called Fujiwara no Teika(1162-1241), left us Hyakunin-Isshu (One
Poems by 100 Poets), a very well-known collection. Another set of 101 tanka,
written after Teika's original anthology manuscript was found in our time, in
1951. Many researchers studied the enigma of his twin anthologies. A couple of
researchers reached the conclusion that Teika needed two anthologies to secretly
hide his sympathy for emperor-poet Gotoba who died in exile in Oki island as a
political criminal. It seems that the different numbers which Teika had assigned
to identical poems were keys to decipher his puzzle. It also seems that he chose
some of the tanka, not because they were great as poetry, but because he needed
the words in them to complete a rather mathematical puzzle which he had prepared
for our future generations. Again, this seems to be the reason why he used a
separate card for each poem rather than the normal book binding. Hyakunin-Isshu
has become the most popular anthology of all times. The set of 100 cards was
once a "must" item for a bride.
We also have the game of Hyakunin-Isshu,
in which athletic talent as well as memory is needed to win a tournament. My
point here is, that for over one thousand years, Japanese poets have written
poetry, approaching from all angles of emotion and intelligence. We had neither
the Greco-Roman tradition of philosophy nor Christian theology. Our ancestors
seem to have expressed their philosophies of life in poetic form through poetry
writing. They engaged in poetry in which they light-heartedly developed a taste
for enjoying all kinds of word play such as anagrams, pangrams, game-like poetry
contests, card-winning tournaments and renku poetry, composed collaboratively.
It seems to me, it is in renku that poets uniquely tried to reflect as many
aspects of the actual world from many angles, using all faculties of brain and
language, even including mathematics and geometry.
Let me introduce one cute episode. When asked to compose a haiku that included a
square, a triangle and a circle, the poet-nun Chiyo (1703-1775), composed this
right away:
|
a mosquito net
with one corner unhooked,
ah, the full moon!
(tr. by P. Donegan) |
I have said that poetry was in the center of cultural values; poetry, indeed,
was the center of life and art. In fact, poems were traditionally composed in
social gatherings as elegant greetings or precious presents. In most of those
gatherings, people liked to sit on the floor in a circle, sharing the feel of
the same ground. In the circle, people enjoyed building up sincere and
long-lasting relationships through making poetry. And today, all of you are
invited to this renku workshop where you sit with us right in the circle!
In addition to playfulness, the fondness of people and a sense of community have
been cultivated for one thousand years.
Basho (1644 - 1694), the great
poet of the 17 century, is now respected worldwide, and his haiku are listed in
the general poetry text books used in America. He, himself, never even thought
of publishing his own book of poetry, though. He instead, rather took such toil
to edit the kasen renku on which he and his disciples collaborated. He took
pride in his ability to understand other poets' verses. He excelled in writing a
link. He took care of his disciples in such a way that his disciples loved him
for the rest of their lives. Last year, Ms Makiko Besho published a short novel
on Basho titled, Is the snow falling this year too? This title is taken
from his verse found in a letter to his disciples.
Is the snow we watched
together last year
falling this year too? |
A sense of community is certainly one good feature of renku. However, too much
emphasis on the socializing aspect and group spirit can cause deterioration of
poetry itself. On the path of Japanese poetry, there were times when things
became stagnant. Those were the times when several poetic geniuses emerged. They
could not help but stand tall, breaking away from the existing circle. Masaoka
Shiki, of the wisteria waves, and Basho, of the frog jumping into a pond, were
like that, and they both succeeded in establishing new circles on their own.
Where on earth did they get such energy? Shiki grew up taking private classic
Chinese lessons taught by his grandfather, and then he entered a university
where he was greatly influenced by Western literature. How excited he must have
been when he found a similarity between ancient Manyo poems and English poems!
Speaking of foreign influences, Basho studied and loved Chinese poems. Their
souls must have been replenished by the individualistic literature from abroad.
In concluding this speech, I would
like to share with you the image of a pendulum. On one pole of the pendulum, I
see the solitude, the quiet and the individual. On the other pole, I see a
blossoming party filled with various voices doing renku. The rich tradition of
Japanese poetry teaches us that we need both. I personally see that the pendulum
is now moving toward collaboration and networking, and I feel very honored to
use this room, "1000," to hold our very first public workshop
today. And we are, ourselves, AIR, the Association of International Renku.
Thank you.
Now Shiki, What do you say? Am I sounding too proud of Japan's tradition? Would
you be worried that the audience from abroad might be turning their backs? Or am
I introducing these deep mysteries rather sensationally when precise scholastic
examination is needed? Should I have compared various civilizations before the
talk?
In fact, emphasizing Japan as a
nation was not my intention at all. Let me confirm that when I said
"Japan," my image was the islands, or the geographic area and the
natives speaking the language. For that matter, our group's name,
"Association for International Renku," might better be changed into
"Association for Inter-language Renku." When you denounced renku, you
were a young man of a very young modern nation. The 20th century was still very
young, as well. Gaining recognition from the world was the goal of this young
nation that had believed in linear progress. On the other hand, I am living in a
post modern Japan where we face floods of "cut and dried" phrases
being spread through TVs and convenience stores. The voice of the language, the
organic plasticity and the quiet of the language, and even the joy of language,
all of which pertain to the life and charm of any language, are especially
dwindling in Japan. I hope you understand my naive excitement in discovering so
many ways in which our ancestors touched secrets of the word. Without
utilizing any visual media, they expressed themselves in the word alone;
they explored and developed the potentials of the language in all directions.
Such imagination!
It is not my place to report to
you the current haiku scenes of Japan. Allow me to point out one simple fact. In
my speech draft, I said that one of the reasons that you denounced renku was the
attitude of many renku masters making money as they taught or evaluated people's
renku. What an irony it is that haiku in Japan is now sponsored by many
commercial entities including such media giants as NHK, the major Broadcasting
station of Japan and the three Newspaper companies, all with enormous financial
resources, whereas renku is supported purely by individuals who love this form
of symbiotic poetry.
Shiki, let me convince you that
you would not have denounced renku had you been my contemporary. You wanted
poetry - the poetry of individuals - freed from the stagnant authorities of your
time. You envisioned the beauty of ancient tradition in full revival as you
pictured the colorful cities outside of Japan. You were so open-minded. You
always believed in being an individual fired with spirit, and you made your
honest existence public through your writings. That should be the way citizens
behave if we want a decent society. Didn't you think that way? Your priority was
placed on encouraging individuality and the leaders of a young nation whose goal
was to catch up with the Western world with flourishing literature. You were a
natural collaborator as well. Everybody remembers you as a pleasant young man,
so great to become friends with. No wonder you loved the teamwork of baseball.
Haven't you been fascinated by the baseball rules which you translated into
Japanese? Having full understanding of renku rules, you must have enjoyed
comparing rules. Did that, too, have some little influence over your conclusion
that renku was only a pastime?
Well, with even much more
resemblance to a baseball game, renku's lack of pursuing one serious theme must
have bothered you. I remember that you were so anxious to become a modern
novelist at one time. Your orthodox concept of literature could not embrace the
entertaining playfulness of renku. . .This is how you boldly declared that renku
does not deserve to be called literature. However, you would be appalled, could
you feel the texture of Japanese society today. Transformation is tremendous.
Wide spread observation among writers and poets now, is that the Japanese
language is on the verge of crisis. During the process of industrialization, the
language that holds every inflection of mother nature in her ever-changing
seasonal flow, keeps losing its tie with the world. During the process of
modernization, the communal bond which was fostered in all kinds of face to face
collaboration, including symbiotic poetry composition around a table, has almost
disappeared. . .Japanese people seem not to place as much confidence in words as
they once did. Shiki, you would agree with me when I say the urgent agenda for
us now, is to rediscover the primordial power of language with its uniqueness,
to create time and space shared by people.
Can we return to Edo when haikai was the way of life, not only of poets and
monks, but also of merchants, samurai and women of the town? Having neither
Greco-Roman tradition of philosophy, nor Christian theology, haikai was the way
in which we Japanese explored life's secrets. In those olden days, many people
practiced their calligraphy skills when submitting a verse as a link for renku.
Masaoka-san, I believe that
inter-language renku is realistic for our time. It reflects the reality of the
present world in a way that no other literary form can do. When we collaborate
on renku using two (or more) different languages, you feel the primordial power
of the language. There are questions and laughter, criss-crossing poets from
various backgrounds. Translation is not a shadow here, but an artery to carry
the essence of each verse. Poetry is polished by going through different
grammars and linguistic features. Cut up montages, created through link after
link of verses, all depend on the most important aspect of the language, i.e., IMAGINATION.
Renku, not having one theme, but many, opens up possibilities. The world now
needs to learn how to coexist without losing identity. Shiki, renku with its
cosmology and flow of shared time has every good reason to exist in this
cracking world of ours. Let me end right here, because I have heard your voice
asking me to stop and . . .
find me
in sky-going green storm
if you may |
I will be looking for you . . .
Yours sincerely,
Eiko Yachimoto
(1) LYNX,
a Journal for Linking Poets, Symbiotic Poetry, Volume XV1, 02-01, AHA!
Poetry at Ahapoetry.com
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