Miyazawa Kenji

by Miyazawa, Kenji

• ISBN13: 9780520247796
• ISBN10: 0520247795
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-14
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

The poet Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933) was an early twentieth-century Japanese modernist who today is known worldwide for his poetry and stories as well as his devotion to Buddhism. "Miyazawa Kenji: Selections" collects a wide range of his poetry and provides an excellent introduction to his life and work. Miyazawa was a teacher of agriculture by profession and largely unknown as a poet until after his death. Since then his work has increasingly attracted a devoted following, especially among ecologists, Buddhists, and the literary avant-garde. This volume includes poems translated by Gary Snyder, who was the first to translate a substantial body of Miyazawa's work into English. Hiroaki Sato's own superb translations, many never before published, demonstrate his deep familiarity with Miyazawa's poetry. His remarkable introduction considers the poet's significance and suggests ways for contemporary readers to approach his work. It further places developments in Japanese poetry into a global context during the first decades of the twentieth century. In addition the book features a Foreword by the poet Geoffrey O'Brien and essays by Tanikawa Shuntaro, Yoshimasu Gozo, and Michael O'Brien.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Foreword: A Modernist in the Mountains	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
A Note on the Translations	p. 59
Poems
From Spring & Asura (First Collection)
Proem	p. 63
Refractive Index	p. 65
The Snow on Saddle Mountain	p. 66
Thief	p. 66
The Thief	p. 67
Love & Fever	p. 67
Spring & Asura	p. 68
Daybreak	p. 70
Sunlight and Withered Grass	p. 70
Cloud Semaphore	p. 71
A Break	p. 71
Rest	p. 72
Annelid Dancer (Annelida Tanzerin)	p. 73
Report	p. 75
The Landscape Inspector	p. 76
Haratai Sword-Dancing Troupe	p. 77
A Mountain Patrolman	p. 79
Traveler	p. 79
Bamboo & Oak	p. 80
Masaniello	p. 80
The Morning of the Last Farewell	p. 82
Pine Needles	p. 84
Pine Needles	p. 86
Voiceless Grief	p. 87
White Birds	p. 88
Okhotsk Elegy	p. 90
Volcano Bay: A Nocturne	p. 95
Commandment on No Greed	p. 97
Love in Religious Mode	p. 98
Past Desire	p. 100
Single-Tree Field	p. 101
Ice Fog in Iihatov	p. 102
Winter & Galaxy Station	p. 103
From Spring & Asura (Second Collection)
The Moon on the Water and the Wound	p. 105
Trying to drink from the spring	p. 106
Smallpox	p. 107
Rest	p. 107
The Weather Bureau	p. 108
The Crow	p. 109
The Sea-Eroded Tableland	p. 110
Mountain Fire	p. 110
From under a poplar	p. 111
Reservoir Note	p. 112
Spring	p. 114
The railroad and the national highway	p. 115
The Tsugaru Strait	p. 117
The Horse	p. 118
Cow	p. 118
The Bull	p. 119
Transition of a Bird	p. 120
Mr. Pamirs the Scholar Takes a Walk	p. 121
If I pass through this forest	p. 123
Spring	p. 125
Spring: Variation	p. 125
Wind & Cedar	p. 126
Cloud	p. 127
When the wind comes	p. 128
Harvesting the Earless Millet	p. 128
Wet in soggy cold rain	p. 130
Night dew and wind mingle desolately	p. 131
Good Devil Praying for Absolution	p. 131
Excursion Permit	p. 133
Zen Dialogue	p. 134
Fantasy during a Journey	p. 136
Wind & Resentments	p. 137
Shadow from the Future	p. 137
Love-Hate for Poetry	p. 138
Some Views Concerning the Proposed Site of a National Park	p. 139
An Opinion Concerning a Proposed National Park Site	p. 141
Drought & Zazen	p. 144
The Iwate Light Railway: July (Jazz)	p. 145
Residence	p. 147
A Valediction	p. 148
The National Highway	p. 150
From Spring & Asura (Third Collection)
Spring	p. 151
Somehow I walk up	p. 151
The Snake Dance	p. 152
Field	p. 153
The corn baking in the blue smoke	p. 154
Banquet	p. 154
Distant Labor	p. 155
Distant Work	p. 156
Cabbage Patch	p. 157
Hospital	p. 158
Flowers & Birds: November	p. 158
Crows in a Hundred Postures	p. 159
The buckets climb	p. 160
Cultivation	p. 161
Sapporo City	p. 162
Ambiguous Argument about a Spring Cloud	p. 162
Pig	p. 163
Malice	p. 164
Now burnt-out eyes ache	p. 164
In Doshin-cho toward daybreak	p. 165
The Unruly Horse	p. 166
The Politicians	p. 167
Politicians	p. 168
Devil's Words:4	p. 169
We lived together	p. 169
The Prefectural Engineer's Statement Regarding Clouds	p. 170
At the very end of the blue sky	p. 173
Raving	p. 173
Colleagues	p. 174
A Rice-Growing Episode	p. 174
Flood	p. 177
The Master of the Field	p. 178
The Breeze Comes Filling the Valley	p. 180
What a coward I am	p. 183
No matter what he does, it's too late	p. 184
Impressions of an Exhibition of Floating-World Paintings	p. 185
In the leaden moonlight	p. 189
The Third Art	p. 190
The Landowner	p. 191
Hateful Kuma Eats His Lunch	p. 193
Since the doctor is still young	p. 194
Night	p. 195
A few more times	p. 195
A horse	p. 198
A Young Land Cultivation Department Technician's Recitative on Irises	p. 199
The man I parted from, below	p. 200
from During Illness & Other Poems
Koreans Pass, Drumming	p. 203
Pneumonia	p. 203
Ah that	p. 204
Talking with Your Eyes	p. 205
Past noon it's three o'clock	p. 206
When that terrifying black cloud	p. 206
Thump thump thump thump thump	p. 207
Desperately trying to sleep to sleep	p. 208
Wind is calling me out in front	p. 209
My chest now	p. 209
When I open my eyes an April wind	p. 210
Night	p. 210
While Ill	p. 211
And it must be that I will die soon	p. 212
(February 1929)	p. 213
October 20th	p. 214
(October) 28	p. 216
Untitled	p. 217
November 3rd	p. 128
Two Tanka	p. 221
On Miyazawa Kenji
Four Images	p. 225
We Are All Excellent Musical Instruments	p. 229
Miyazawa Kenji	p. 235
Glossary of Japanese Names and Terms	p. 237
Selected Bibliography	p. 243
Acknowledgments	p. 247
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