by Неизвестный
Last year, we established “VOU Club” and have continued our lively strife for the newest art. Now the existence of our group has come to be attentively watched by the younger generations of this country.
We started from Dada and passed surrealism. And at present we are connected with no “-ism” of Europe. Under the close influence of contemporary architecture and technology, we are making progress in our theory on art and are forming a characteristic form of ourselves.
“VOU Club” consists of poets, artists, composers, architects, and technologists. The members are now twenty-one, two-thirds of them being poets.
I send you two copies of our review VOU under separate cover. I shall be very much obliged if you will kindly make some ideas of our group by them.
Hoping you will receive this letter as soon as possible.
I remain,
Yours truly,
Katue Kitasono
Translated by John Solt
NAKANO SHIGEHARU
Nakano Shigeharu (1902–1979) was a central figure in the development of a politically conscious literature, and he remains highly respected for his stories, poetry, and literary criticism. By no means a proletarian figure (he attended Tokyo University and was a friend of Hori Tatsuo), Nakano’s deep interest in Marxism led him to compose critiques chronicling his vision of the ills of contemporary Japanese society.
IMPERIAL HOTEL (TEIKOKU HOTERU, 1926)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous hotel, which was built in 1915 and survived the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, was a celebrated meeting place for foreign dignitaries and celebrities.
I
This is the West
The dogs use English
This is the proper West
The dogs invite me to the Russian Opera
This is the West A Western Exposition
The Japanese marketplace for kimono and shopworn curios
And this is a prison
The guard jangles his keys
This is a dreary, damp, dank prison
Neither the prisoners nor the wardens trade words with a soul
And the prisoners are called by number
And the guards stand in the exits / the entranceways
And then this is a cheap dive
The old fat guy is roaring drunk
And also this is a cheap whorehouse
The women walk naked
And this is a hole
Black and fetid
II
A large hole
A large whorehouse
A large saloon
A large dampish prison
A big and seedy sample Japanese marketplace
Undestroyed even by the earthquake
In the center of Tokyo
Over our heads
Squats, letting loose a stench
SONG (UTA, 1926)
You, Don’t sing
Don’t sing of flowery grasses or dragonfly wings
Don’t sing of the wind’s whispering or the smell of woman’s hair
All those weak things
All those uncertain things
All gloomy things—brush them aside
Reject all elegance
Sing of solely the honest parts
Parts that will fill the belly
Sing of that very edge where it pierces from the chest
Songs that spring back from being knocked down
Songs that draw up strength from the depths of shame
Those sorts of songs
Clear out fumigate your heart
Fill out your lungs
Sing out in severe rhythm
Those sorts of songs
Pound into the chests of the people going by going by
PAUL CLAUDEL (POORU KUROODERU, 1927)
Paul Claudel, a famous Catholic poet and diplomat, became France’s ambassador to Japan in 1921.
Paul Claudel was a poet
Paul Claudel was an ambassador
And France occupied the Ruhr
Romain Rolland fled to Jesus
Vladimir Ilyich returned to Russia
And Paul Claudel wrote poetry
Japan sent troops to Siberia
Fatty Semenov came running
And Paul Claudel wrote poetry
The farmers of France saved their money
The rich took that away
And the rich prayed to Mary
And Paul Claudel prayed to Mary
And Paul Claudel became the French ambassador to Japan
And Paul Claudel wrote poetry
Paul Claudel wrote poetry
Paul Claudel circled the moat
Paul Claudel played the shamisen
Paul Claudel danced kabuki
Paul Claudel did foreign relations
Ahh and then
Finally one day
Paul Claudel
Memorialized Charles-Louis Philippe
The ambassador on Philippe!
Ahh the great Paul Claudel!
Paul Claudel ambassador they say is a poet
“Our little Philippe” will
From within his humble grave most likely say
“Paul Claudel became ambassador?”
TRAIN (KISHA, 1927)
Section 3 (of 3)
Bye Bye Bye Bye
Good-bye Good-bye Good-bye Good-bye
We saw that
We heard that
A hundred factory gifts alight
Where a thousand factory girls ride on.
What are factory girls?
What are mill factory girls?
What are companies factories chimneys dormitories?
What does it mean that the girls are wrung out
What does it mean that they are wrung out like wet towels?
And what is New Year’s?
What is New Year’s break?
Ahh—the girls have been thoroughly wrung out And pushed out—in the name of New Year’s
And we saw that
A hundred factory girls alight where a thousand factory girls ride on
And we saw that
Fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters come out from the snow
Atop their oil-papered raincoats
Atop their capes
Atop their wraps the white snow collecting
And their straw shoes wet all the way along up
And we saw how they and the girls embraced
And we saw that
They and the girls stroking each other
They and the gifts stroking each other’s heads and faces and shoulders
And how the snow kept falling on
Bye Bye Bye Bye
And the girls knew
That only for a while they were able to embrace
Only just a while for giving pats receiving pats
Ah—the girls knew
Who they themselves are
Where their villages are
And what sorts await in the village
The girls were pushed out in the name of New Year’s
The girls were thoroughly wrung out
And in the villages new buyers for them making all the rounds
Leaving those small stations
Through the snow
The girls are returning to the buyers there in ambush
This they all knew
Bye Bye Bye Bye
Good-bye Good-bye Good-bye Good-bye
That there was Etchū
That there the land of special treats for the rich
Atop the dirt floor exposed to the wind in that small station
Daughters and parents and brothers and sisters each patted the other
The parting words of those who sit and those who keep riding
Of the girls probably to be bought and rebought up again by different factories
Of the mill factory girls probably never to meet again
The chorus of their thousand voices
Spun round and round that never stopping sky of snow
THE RATE OF EXCHANGE (KAWASE SŌBA, 1936)
The words in italics originally were censored.
If Japan is
That different from all of the countries of the world
Even if Nihonjin
Is read as NIPPONJIN The sound sounds good
If we’re that different from all the foreigners in the world
Tell me how you tell yourself apart
If one yen is not two marks
And it happens that it’s not a half a mark
If on the whole the yen is not a mark and not a pound or a ruble or any of these things
What is this darn thing called one yen
I know The professors taught me
Said some long ago know-nothing barbarian uncivilized folks
Used some sort of clamshells for their cash
And now even the professors
Don’t even know how many yen’s a shell.
On the front the chrysanthemum’s 16 petals
On the back rippling waves and cherry blossom flowers
This is then my own 10 sen
And thrown into the bargain a hole like they didn’t used to have
And by the way why do the mails
If all foreigners are unrefined
Putting on the front of their coins kings and presidents and sickles and hammers
Arrive at these far destinations
Why do “cheap and quality Japanese goods”
Have their way in foreign markets?
Soon all sorts of geniuses
Trying to make theory from all this
Will be suffering for sure
But that is fruitless effort
They’ve got to learn the exchange rate
And I for one Even if you don’t know
I know the international clamshell exchange
Translated by Miriam Silverberg
POETRY IN TRADITIONAL FORMS
KITAHARA HAKUSHŪ
Kitahara Hakushū (1885–1942), who wrote poetry in forms other than the tanka included here, was influenced by the idea of art for art’s sake and the cult of Europe imported at the turn of the twentieth century. His first collection, published in 1913, reveals his fascination with French symbolism and his predilection for exotic topics, including an interest in the “Christian century” in Japan, which continued to play a central role in his poetic conceptions throughout his career.
Birds of spring, Haru no tori
Don’t sing, please don’t sing! na naki so naki so
A blaze of red aka-aka to
In the grass outside my window, to no mo no kusa ni
The sun sets this evening. hi no iru yūbe
My senses are stirred Fukura naru
By the fluffy fragrance of boa no nioi wo
A feather boa: atarashimu
A secret meeting with her jūichigatsu no
One morning in November asa no aibiki
Translated by Donald Keene
A summer mist Kaguroba ni
Enveloping those dark leaves shizumite niou
Perfumes the air. natsu kasumi
In my youth I saw wakakaru ware wa
And did not see. mitsutsu mizariki.
Completely blind Shiihatete
Yet ever gentle. naoshi yawara to
What secret did you cherish, masu mami ni
Saintly monk, hijiri nani wo ka
Within those eyes? yadoshitamaishi
Translated by Margaret Benton Fukasawa
An ailing child yameru ko wa
Plays a harmonica hamonika wo fuki
Into the night yo ni irinu
Above the cornfield morokashibata no
A yellow moon in ascent ki naru tsuki no de
Translated by Makoto Ueda
The moon god’s light tsukiyomi wa
outside hikari sumitsutsu
is bright and clear to ni maseri
And I who think this kaku omou ware ye
am like water mizu no gotokaru
Translated by Janine Beichman
OKAMOTO KANOKO
Despite the vicissitudes of her personal life and loves, Okamoto Kanoko (1889–1939) continued to write tanka, especially after Yosano Akiko took an interest in them. In the 1930s, Okamoto became a friend of the novelist Kawabata Yasunari, who encouraged her to write prose, and her later stories are much valued.
innately reserved tsutsu mashiku
a silkworm does not cry nakanu utawanu
but seals its grief-laden heart kanashiku komete
in a cocoon it weaves mayu amareken
stark naked hadaka nite
I hold in my hand ware wa mochitari
a red apple kurenai no
holding it in my hand ringo mochitari
I take a morning bath asaburo no naka ni
ten years ago kyōjin no
I was a madwoman ware ga minikeru
with eyes fixed on totose mae no
fiery red cherry blossoms makkana sakura
inky black cherry blossoms makuroki sakura
as I gaze upon osore moteru
a bundle of small red roses waga mite areba
with fear in my heart beni kobara
each and every flower hitotsu hitotsu mina
turns into an eye me to narinikeri
a flower blooms onozu kara
showing the natural color naru inochi no iro ni
it was born with hana sakeri
while I have never known waga saku iro wo
in what color I am to bloom ware wa shiranu ni
having let flow nagaruru chi
all the blood to flow nagashi tsukushite
in the kitchen kuriyabe ni
a dead fish lies gleaming shigyo hikaru nari
in the stillness of noon hiru no shizukesa
Translated by Makoto Ueda
SAITŌ MOKICHI
To many SaitŌ, people Mokichi (1868–1953) is the best and most representative of all twentieth-century tanka writers. He pursued both a literary and a medical career at the same time. One of the first physicians to study psychiatry in Germany, he later became the director of a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo. His son, the writer Kita Morio, loosely based the character of the protagonist in his novel The House of Nire (Nireke no hitobito) on Mokichi.
Crimson kurenai no
the crape-myrtle sarusuberi wa
had bloomed sakinuredo
and yet this madman kono kyōjin wa
said not a word mono wa iwazukeri
As I lie beside my mother shi ni chikaki
who is close to death, haha ni soine no
piercingly the call shinshin to
of frogs in distant fields tōta no kawazu
echoes in the heavens. ten ni kikoyuru
At daybreak, asa akete
the great steam horn fune yori nareru
sounds from the ship, futobue no
its echo lingering; kodama wa nagashi
