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. The ten tanka and the additional haiku and tanka quoted in the commentary remain in Japanese.
Romantic Poetry Forum: Summer, June 2025
June 21, 2025
Record and commentary: 河内裕二, Japan Romanticism Society
June 21, the day of the poetry meeting, was the summer solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere it is the year's longest day. In Tokyo the sun rises around 4:30 a.m. and sets around 7:00 p.m. The winter solstice has familiar customs such as bathing with yuzu or eating pumpkin, but the summer solstice seems to have none in particular. Perhaps some regions have special customs? Soon the rainy season will end and summer will come. The heat looks likely to be severe again this year. We need to let our bodies gradually adjust for summer.
The meeting was held on June 21 at the Miura City Working Citizens' Center, from 1:30 a.m. as stated in the source.1 Those attending were the following seven people and 河内裕二: 三宅尚道, president of the Miura Tanka Society; 嘉山光枝, 嶋田弘子, 羽床員子 and 安田喜子; 濱野成秋, president of the Japan Romanticism Society; and ジュン葉山. The two absent members, 加藤由良子 and 清水和子, also submitted poems.
目に青葉ゴールデン明けのスーパーで
笑みつつ若者わが荷運び 由良子
The author is 加藤由良子. 「目に青葉」 brings to mind 山口素堂's haiku 「目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹」. The freshness of early summer's green leaves, and the young person's conduct, fresher still: the poem is refreshing through and through. Choosing 「ゴールデン」 rather than simply “consecutive holidays” is excellent. Its presence creates an atmosphere in which everything shines golden, lending color to the whole poem.
目をつむり耳を澄ませば子らの声
この空間も今は他のもの 弘子
The author is 嶋田弘子. What 「この空間」 refers to is not clear, but according to her it means the house where she used to live. Having sold it, she found going there to clear it out intensely painful. She says that “space” is the only word for it, since she means not merely the building but the garden and everything else. In that sense, the somewhat impersonal word 「空間」 may actually work better. Letting go of a place filled with family memories is not merely a physical move or disposal: it is separation from past time and memory, and the loneliness and loss do not easily disappear. The poem uses restrained words. Their quietness makes the author's emotional trembling and pain reach readers all the more strongly.
平成の米騒動を思い出す
はじめて食べたタイ米の味 光枝
A work by 嘉山光枝. Recently rice has been scarce and prices have soared. The 「平成の米騒動」 in the poem probably refers to the shortage of 1993. A record cold summer caused a poor harvest that year. Releasing stockpiled rice did not resolve the shortage, so emergency imports were made from abroad. Many Japanese probably ate Thai rice for the first time then. For anyone who experienced it, this poem brings the memory vividly back. There were many negative opinions about the taste of foreign rice at the time. How about now? Diets are more varied than they were then, so perhaps different dishes can make the most of each rice's qualities.
父笑い母もそれ見て笑い出す
梅雨とは無縁のここは青空 潤
A poem by ジュン葉山. The natural image of a blue sky during the rainy season expresses a warm, peaceful family scene and effectively conveys emotional brightness. As one would expect of an author who is also a singer, the words have a very light rhythm and leave a cheerful impression. In reality, however, she says that everyday life is difficult in many ways, including caregiving.
気任せに海岸回りのバスに乗る
雲の切れ間に鳶たわむれて 喜子
The author is 安田喜子. The phrase 「気任せに」 suggests a slight release from everyday life, giving even a bus in the local area the feeling of a journey. The coastal route adds to its appeal. A kite flies between clouds in the sky, presumably seen from the bus window. The word 「たわむれて」 gives an impression of pleasant play on the wind, connecting with the poet's mood as she takes the bus on a whim. It is also delightful to imagine that the kite may have been looking down at her on the bus.
儚げなスーパー隅のネモフィラを
買物籠にそっと入れたり 員子
A work by 羽床員子. This is an everyday scene of supermarket shopping, but the choice of nemophila as the purchase is splendid. Its very name suggests a beautiful flower, yet the location 「スーパーの隅」 conveys the reality that it has been left unsold, making us feel sorrow. The poet puts the flower in her basket—and does so 「そっと」. Nemophila also has a delicate, somewhat fragile quality. Above all, the poem reveals the author's kindness.
憶良等も数多集へる宵花火
罷らむとてか美食啄む 成秋
The author is President 濱野成秋. There is a poem said to have been composed by 山上憶良 on leaving a banquet: 「憶良らは今は罷らむ子泣くらむそれその母も我を待つらむそ」. With that poem in mind, he writes about attending a fireworks display. 憶良 seems to have taken food home to children waiting hungrily, whereas this author 「美食啄む」. It is not easy to view oneself objectively and express self-directed irony in a poem. Yet a true expressive artist writes even the sides of the self that one does not wish to see or show others.
備蓄米並んでもらって抱いてゆく
外はＡＩ何でも出来る 和子
The author is 清水和子. The poem humorously contrasts the everyday, lived-in world of lining up to receive rice with the somewhat impersonal and abstract world of AI. The irony of its being 「備蓄米」 is effective too. If it were 「コシヒカリ」, the poem would lose some of its interest. Ultimately, even with advanced technology, obtaining a staple food requires simple bodily actions. There seems to be a gap between fundamental human existence and AI. This poem sharply expresses the contemporary situation.
恋ごころひと雨ごとにふくらませ
かはづのこゑの闇にとけゆく 裕二
My own work. While waiting for a bus home after rain, I heard frogs croaking. Was it my imagination that they sounded louder than usual? For some reason the sound left a strong impression. The poem is about frogs, but I made the opening about swelling feelings of love readable as referring either to myself or to the frogs, so as to expand the reader's imagination.
苗五本植ゑた胡瓜は花咲きて
今日収穫す十三本目 尚道
The author is 三宅尚道. This is a poem about a kitchen-garden harvest. Without growing vegetables oneself, one cannot tell whether thirteen cucumbers so far from five seedlings is plentiful or average. What the poem says is probably factual, but do the numbers five and thirteen have significance? Thirteen is an unlucky number in the West. Though this is a Japanese poetry meeting, the author is Christian, which made me a little curious.
This time 嘉山's poem referred to 「平成の米騒動」. Incorporating a specific event in tanka can awaken memories of it and the feelings experienced then, leaving a strong impression and creating empathy. For readers unfamiliar with the event, however, its meaning and background may be unclear, making empathy harder. Should one therefore avoid writing about particular events? It is not that simple. Such “not knowing” can set readers' imaginations in motion and produce new interpretations. Perhaps we may regard it not as incomprehensibility but as space left by words that gives the poem depth and resonance.
1. Translation note: the source explicitly reads 「午前一時半」, “1:30 a.m.” It has not been silently changed to an afternoon time.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.