The Heart Is a Lonely Traveller

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: 2023-05-29

This material was published on the Japanese website. Dates and notices in the text reflect the original publication.

Prose-only translation. The six poems remain in Japanese.

Contemporary Romantic Poets, No. 1: 高鳥奈緒

The Heart Is a Lonely Traveller — 高鳥奈緒

I must write.
Seishu Hamano

Many women writers and poets have opened up the literature of the heart for me. In my student days, they included 津村節子 and 郷静子.

津村節子 was socially engaged. After graduating from Tsurumi Girls’ School, 郷静子 survived the war-torn streets, attended a literary school, and entered the literary world with 『れくいえむ』. Like 津村, she won the Akutagawa Prize, yet there was not the slightest trace of that glitter about her. From Tsurumi Girls’ School to the Japan Literature School: her encounter with it came in the era of 野間宏, 中野重治 and 佐田稲子, who led postwar New Japanese Literature, together with 針生一郎 and 黒井千次. Was this when New Japanese Literature was repeatedly clashing with the Communist Party? For 郷, they must have been dark days, with black clouds hanging over all Japan.

And now I am deeply moved to be introducing 高鳥奈緒, a graduate of that same Tsurumi Girls’ School.

There are black clouds about 高鳥奈緒, the clouds of a lonely traveller, tossed about by circumstances with no settled destination. In this, is she akin to 郷静子? Yet deep within her, feelings boil up and erupt.

Conflict with her father and mother churns within her, leading to discord and conflict with her husband. Her days of brooding are harrowing. She is like Electra in Greek tragedy.

In the West, would she be a femme fatale confined in a lonely castle? In contemporary Japan, ten years have passed since 郷静子 quietly died. Bearing her own requiem, 高鳥奈緒 has become a standard-bearer for the literature of Tsurumi, pouring out poems in a style that also has an underlying affinity with the world of 金子みすゞ.

Like みすゞ, yet not みすゞ.

奈緒 cries out. A howl. A torrent of words bursts forth, as in Ginsberg…

Among the women writers and poets who have opened up the literature of the heart, the West offers Emily Dickinson. So argumentative, so lofty: for that reason she is also loved in Japan by those who compete in erudition. Viewed through such eyes, 郷静子 may seem subdued, whereas 高鳥奈緒 is full of passion and sorrow. A passion unlike one’s own spills over, making her seem a crowning achievement of the distinguished Tsurumi Girls’ School. Is there also an affinity with 鳳晶子 of the First Prefectural Girls’ High School? Or with 増田雅子 of Baika? She lives in the present while also bringing to mind 山川登美子 of Obama. There are many voices calling her a reincarnation of 金子みすゞ, but she is also the most enigmatic figure among the writers and poets associated with our society. Written by Seishu.