The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

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The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 92

by J. Thomas Rimer


  IMPERIAL HOTEL (TEIKOKU HOTERU, 1926)

  Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous hotel, which was built in 1915 and survived the Great Kantō 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 our 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 yews 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

  Arri
ve 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

  AKUTAGAWA RYŪNOSUKE

  Although best remembered as a writer of short fiction, some of which is included in this anthology, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927) also earned a considerable reputation as a writer of haiku, which he began to compose shortly after his graduation from college. When he was thirty-five, suffering from an ever more uncontrollable nervous disorder, he took an overdose of sleeping pills and died, a celebrated suicide that, for many people, marked the end of an epoch.

  Sick and feverish

  in the gleam of cherry blossoms

  I keep shivering.

  netsu wo yande

  sakura akari ni

  furue iru

  Slime on the stones—

  gloomily through the water

  the rays of the sun.

  ishi no aka

  monouki mizu no

  hizashi kana

  Unable to stand

  with the stillness, it falls—

  summer camellia

  shizukasa ni

  taezu chiri-keri

  natsu-tsubaki

  Translated by Makoto Ueda

  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 an central role in his poetic conceptions throughout his career.

  Birds of spring,

  Don’t sing, please don’t sing!

  A blaze of red

  In the grass outside my window,

  The sun sets this evening.

  Haru no tori

  na naki so naki so

  aka-aka to

  to no mo no kusai ni

  hi no iru yū be

  My senses are stirred

  By the fluffy fragrance of

  Fukura naru

  boa no nioi wo

  A feather boa:

  A secret meeting with her

  One morning in November

  atarashimu

  jūichigatsu no

  asa no aibiki

  Translated by Donald Keene

  A summer mist

  Enveloping those dark leaves

  Perfumes the air.

  In my youth I saw

  And did not see.

  Kaguroba ni

  shizumite niou

  natsu kasumi

  wakakaru ware wa

  mitsutsu mizariki.

  Completely blind

  Yet ever gentle.

  What secret did you cherish,

  Saintly monk,

  Within those eyes?

  Shiihatete

  naoshi yawara to

  masu mami ni

  hijiri nani wo ka

  yadoshitamaishi

  Translated by Margaret Benton Fukasawa

  An ailing child

  Plays a harmonica

  Into the night

  Above the cornfield

  A yellow moon in ascent

  yameru ko wa

  hamonika wo fuki

  yo ni irinu

  morokashibata no

  ki naru tsuki no de

  Translated by Makoto Ueda

  The moon god’s light

  outside

  is bright and clear

  And I who think this

  am like water

  tsukiyomi wa

  hikari sumitsutsu

  to ni maseri

  kaku omou ware ye

  misu no gotokaru

  Translated by Janine Beichman

  MITSUHASHI TAKAJO

  One of the most noted women haiku poets of the twentieth century, Mitsuhashi Takajo (1899–1963) first wrote haiku under the tutelage of Yosano Akiko and Wakayama Bokusui. In the 1920s, she had become a poet of distinction. In the postwar years, her books of literary criticism earned her considerable attention as well.

  climb this tree

  and you’ll be a she-devil—

  red leaves in the sunset glow

  kono ki noboraba

  kijo to narubeshi

  yūmomiji

  a woman stands

  all alone, ready to wade

  across the Milky Way

  onna hitori

  tateri ginga wo

  wataru beku

  falling leaves

  falling leaves falling leaves

  falling on my bed too

  ochiba

  ochiba ochiba

  fushido no naki nimo furu

  their lives last

  only while aflame—

  a woman and a pepper pod

  moyuru ma ga inochi

  onna to

  tōgarashi

  the aged person

  wanting to become a tree

  embraces a tree

  sue wa ki ni

  naritai rōjin

  ki wo idaki

  among thousands

  of singing insects, one

  singing out of tune

  sen no mushi

  naku ippiki no

  kuruinaki

  Translated by Makoto Ueda

  OGIWARA SEISENSUI

  Ogiwara Seisensui (1885–1976) is remembered primarily as one of the most adventuresome haiku poets of his day. In addition, he was much admired for his translations of German literature into Japanese, particularly of Goethe. Ogiwara’s personal life had many sides. After a series of deaths in the family, he became a Buddhist mendicant priest for a time, and religious sentiments can be found in his work during this period. Among the unusual qualities of his haiku was his emphasis on so-called free-style haiku, which omits seasonal words and often stresses irregular word divisions and repetitions of sounds.

  It walks the sky, cloudless,

  clear: the moon alone

  sora wo ayumu

  rō-rō to tsuki hitori

  Translated by Janine Beichman

  Morning with a baby crying with all its might

  And a crowing rooster.

  Chikara ippai ni naku ko to

  naku tori to no asa.

  I suck at

  The sour tangerine of

  Memories of my wife.

  Tsuma no tsuioku

  no suppai mikan wo

  suute iru.

  Translated by Donald Keene

  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

  a silkworm does not cry

 

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