English translation of the prose
AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Originally published: 16 July 2022.
A historical report from the Japanese website. Weather and public-health remarks reflect the time of writing. Quoted poems remain in Japanese.
Japan Romantic Poetry Forum: Summer, Fumizuki
Recorded 16 July 2022
Record and commentary: 河内裕二, Japan Romanticism Society
Mid-July normally marks the end of the rainy season, but this year it ended on 27 June, the earliest date on record. That was not the only unusual feature: days above 35°C followed. In July, temperatures finally dropped one category to midsummer days, yet above 30°C it was still hot. Fortunately, perhaps because of rain, the past few days have stayed below 30°C. I have become so conscious of maximum temperatures because I wear a mask outdoors. Heat trapped in the body leads to heatstroke.
The gathering began at 13:30 on 16 July at Miura Workers’ Civic Center. Present were 三宅尚道, president of the Miura Tanka Association, 加藤由良子, 嘉山光枝, 嶋田弘子, 羽床員子, Seishu Hamano, president of the Japan Romanticism Society, 岩間滿美子, and 河内裕二. 清水和子 of the Miura association also sent poems.
新聞はどこから読むのと聞く友に
テレビ欄だと即答をする 光枝
The poet is 嘉山光枝. Talking with a friend about newspapers, she surprised the friend by saying that, unlike the usual front-to-back order, she reads from the back and reaches the front page last. She sometimes reads a novel’s ending first too. Detective fiction includes mystery and suspense: in a mystery the culprit or trick remains unknown until the end, while in suspense the protagonist closes in on a culprit already known to the reader. Kayama likes Columbo, so in short she is a suspense enthusiast.
子供のころ自転車屋さんあった場所
今は軽自動車三台並ぶ 由良子
A work by 加藤由良子. The bicycle shop that stood nearby in childhood has gone, replaced by a parking area. Seeing it reminded her of the shop and the proprietor’s family living upstairs. A greengrocer nearby has disappeared too. They were all good people. She composed while remembering those who are no longer there.
書く人に残日かぞへと責める身に
炎天傾（かたぶ）き降る里しぐれ 成秋
The poet is President Seishu Hamano. He once advised someone beginning a history of their family that, at that pace, the remaining years of life would not allow completion. The warning also admonished himself. Yet he immediately regretted saying it. The second half expresses that feeling. 降る里 plays on 古里, hometown; 炎天 evokes the Bon season. He had not even visited his ancestors’ graves, yet had given insensitive advice to someone diligently writing ancestral history, and the sun was angry with him. It is a splendid expression.
列島が真赤に染まる天気予報
梅雨は明けしも未（いま）だ六月 員子
A work by 羽床員子. This June was exceptional: the rains ended early and days as hot as midsummer followed. She expresses the severity through the weather forecast. What turns the islands bright red is not sunlight but the colors on the televised forecast—an interesting choice.
御社（みやしろ）の白木の門にやおら触れ
病む弟（おと）おもふ薄月の夜 裕二
My own poem. Hearing that my younger brother had been unwell recently, I stopped to pray when passing a local shrine in the evening. The gate to the worship hall was already closed, so I prayed before it. 薄月夜 is an autumn seasonal word in haiku, and I wondered whether it suited a July gathering. But this is tanka, and season is not central to the content, so I chose 薄月の夜 to fit the image.
梅雨開けて常ならぬ世となりしとも
なほ常なりし日々を楽しも 滿美子
The poet is 岩間滿美子. She directly expresses present social conditions and feelings in a poem of philosophical depth. On a recent trip, someone shared a theory about the “voice of heaven”: since the gods do not speak, they convey their voice through people. If one hears a person speak and feels grateful, those words are heaven’s voice; one should live by gathering such voices. Perhaps this poem reminds its author that heaven’s voice exists within daily life.
さまざまな人は過ぎ行く空港に
我も過ぎゆく那覇の夏空 尚道
The poet is 三宅尚道. Seeing crowds passing through Naha Airport, he felt as the poem describes. Travel seems a metaphor for life, and reading it brings to mind the opening of Basho’s Oku no Hosomichi, beginning 月日は百代の過客にして. Where Basho traveled north, Miyake goes south to Okinawa. The image of a dazzling blue sky in the closing phrase expands without limit.
「足音で育つ」と云われる野菜哉
長靴履いてサクサク豊作 弘子
A poem by 嶋田弘子. When she began vegetable gardening, a farmer told her that vegetables grow by hearing footsteps. She was doubtful, but crops she visited often did indeed grow well. Whether sound itself matters is uncertain. This year too, she felt that care and affection produce good vegetables. Against the striking opening, the second half’s sounds and rhythm convey great pleasure in growing them.
床並べ語り疲れて寝返れば
娘の寝顔に幼な見えたり 和子
The poet is 清水和子, absent today. She recently stayed at a hotel with her two daughters for the first time in a while, sleeping on three futons laid side by side. They must have had a truly enjoyable time. Children remain children forever; perhaps their sleeping faces recalled earlier days. Such a poem is born from a good parent-child relationship.
This gathering made me think about kakekotoba, pivot words using homophones to express both a scene or object and an emotion, a common technique in waka. President Hamano used it effectively in 降る里しぐれ. In classical waka, pivot words are usually written in kana. In modern tanka, however, kana can sometimes upset the overall balance and feel unnatural. Writing one meaning in kanji and suggesting the other is practical.
I tried to make the ending of my own poem a pivot word, but gave up when it did not work. I considered describing the misfortune of finding the shrine closed as 運のない夜, a night without luck, replacing 運 with 付き, and pairing it with 月なしの夜, a moonless night. Yet it did not seem right for the whole poem, and the content and atmosphere led me finally to 薄月の夜. Of course, one says that luck is present or absent, not thin, so this is not a pivot word. Even so, I am satisfied that the ending may, if somewhat forcibly, suggest a night when I was not very lucky.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.