English translation of the prose
AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Originally published:
This material was published on the Japanese website. Dates and notices in the text reflect the original publication.
This is a prose translation. Ten submitted tanka, the final classical example and poetic quotations remain in Japanese.
Romantic Poetry Forum: Spring, April 2022
Recorded April 16, 2022
Record and commentary: 河内裕二, Japan Romanticism Society
It is said that spring never has three consecutive clear days, but on the day of the meeting the previous day's rain had stopped and the sky was clear. A joint meeting of the Miura Tanka Society and the Japan Romanticism Society was held on April 16 from 1:30 p.m. at the Miura Working Citizens' Center. The source describes the participants as “eight people and 河内裕二,” while listing the following seven names: 三宅尚道, president of the Miura Tanka Society; 加藤由良子, 嘉山光枝, 嶋田弘子 and 羽床員子; and 濱野成秋, president of the Japan Romanticism Society, and 岩間滿美子.1 清水和子 and 櫻井艶子 of the Miura Tanka Society also submitted poems.
星のふる観覧車で吹く早春賦
オカリナ聴きし友も逝きたり 由良子
The author is 加藤由良子. There was a time when she was absorbed in the ocarina, always carrying it and playing whenever she had time. Once, out with friends and returning late, she played 「早春賦」 inside a Ferris wheel as a memory of their time together—in Odaiba, as she remembers it. Two of the friends who listened have since died, and 加藤 herself no longer plays the ocarina.
一人旅初体験の孫待てば
駅降り立ちて手をふり笑顔 光枝
A work by 嘉山光枝, about a grandchild visiting during spring vacation. Previously the child had always come in the parents' car. This time, for the first solo journey, the child would change trains to reach her, so 嘉山 was anxious and her heart pounded. The grandchild, however, enjoyed filming scenery from the train and was entirely at ease. The first part conveys 嘉山's feelings, the latter the grandchild's mood and appearance.
芳春の喜びさへも消し去りぬ
異国の街に砲弾の雨 裕二
My poem. 「芳春」 means spring in full bloom. Russia's invasion is destroying Ukrainian cities and causing many casualties. In composing, I first thought of Ukraine, but did not use its name because I felt that whenever war occurs, from past to present, the same tragic conditions arise.
在りし日にそっと作りし品々よ
何処に消ゆるこの身の後は 弘子
The author is 嶋田弘子. She likes making things, including sewing, wooden figures and more. 「そっと」 expresses the care, effort and feeling she puts into making them without intending to show them to anyone. Things one has made or cherishes may mean little to others. She wondered what would happen to them when she died and composed with a certain loneliness.
Returning to my mother's time
香の便り受くるも苦界ぞ包みたる
蕾の梅が枝咲かせと乞うや 成秋
The author is President 濱野成秋. 「香の便り」 is a perfume-scented letter from the pleasure quarters. The wife who receives and opens it while her husband is away is also in a world of suffering, though not in those quarters. 「梅が枝」 was the professional name used as a courtesan by a concubine of 景季 (Kagesue), described in the source as the eldest son of 梶原源太景時. There is a story that money she earned by selling her body equipped him with armor and other weapons for battle. The latter part can be read as 梅が枝 telling the lawful wife that it is none other than she who provides and supports him. According to President 濱野, such lovers' quarrels occurred repeatedly during and after the war, and his mother too had painful experiences. As the headnote says, he wrote this by entering his mother's feelings.
立つ瀬なき我が身の上の苦しきに
春の宵なる月を眺むる 滿美子
A work by 岩間滿美子, probably reflecting upon herself. The suffering in the first part is set against the beautiful spring-evening scene in the second. As the phrase 「春宵一刻値千金」 suggests, a spring evening is beautiful and full of atmosphere. 「立つ瀬」 at the opening directs awareness and the gaze downward toward the feet; 「月を眺むる」 at the close suddenly turns them upward. This probably expresses the movement of the heart as well.
「員」の字を「かず」と読む人増えしかも
大河ドラマの比企能員見て 員子
The author is 羽床員子. People had never read her given name correctly as “Kazuko.” When she first saw the warrior 比企能員's name in a high-school history class, she felt that her own name was there. 比企能員 appears in the historical television drama currently being broadcast, and her delight prompted the poem.
シベリアに送られ戻りし人の短歌
再び読めりロシアの戦争 尚道
A poem by 三宅尚道. Everyone in his parents' generation experienced the war, and among his acquaintances are people who were actually interned in Siberia. Some of that generation wrote poems about their internment. Reading them, he says, made him feel that Russia's actions have not changed from then to now.
安定剤心も体も支配して
ほんとの自分はどこにいるのと 和子
The author is 清水和子, absent today. According to 三宅, this poem describes her state after eye surgery when she took a tranquilizer.
春浅く夕日輝き波寄せて
鴎鳴くなよ、過ぎし日うつつ 艶子
A work by 櫻井艶子, absent today. Does the closing 「過ぎし日うつつ」 mean something like the days gone by becoming real? If so, how does that connect to the beautiful seascape at sunset? It is a pity we cannot ask her.
Tanka consists of five phrases and thirty-one sound units in a 5–7–5–7–7 pattern. Yet extra or missing sounds are not a particular problem if the cadence is maintained. When words that occur to me have too many or too few sounds, I replace them with others and somehow fit them into the fixed form. That form at least gives the sound an ordered rhythm. Some of the poems we read at meetings have extra sounds, yet all flow naturally without awkwardness. Perhaps the whole, including the content, is balanced. I would like to learn from that.
Conversely, there are tanka called hachō, broken rhythm, which use substantial excesses or shortages of sounds to aim for effects unavailable within the regular form. 斎藤茂吉 has the following poem. Someday I would like to try such broken-rhythm poetry too.
夜をこめて鴉いまだも啼かざるに
暗黑に鰥鰥として國をおもふ 茂吉
1. Translation note: the source's stated participant count and its list of names differ. No missing participant has been invented.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.