Tada Chimako

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Tada Chimako 多田智満子

(1930-2003)



One of Japan's most important modern poets, Tada Chimako (1930-2003) gained prominence in her native country for her sensual, frequently surreal poetry and fantastic imagery. Although Tada's writing is an essential part of postwar Japanese poetry, her use of themes and motifs from European, Near Eastern, and Mediterranean history, mythology, and literature, as well as her sensitive explorations of women's inner lives make her very much a poet of the world.



"Forest of Eyes" offers English-language readers their first opportunity to read a wide selection from Tada's extraordinary oeuvre, including nontraditional free verse, poems in the traditional forms of tanka and haiku, and prose poems.

Translator Jeffrey Angles introduces this collection with an incisive essay that situates Tada as a poet, explores her unique style, and analyzes her contribution to the representation of women in postwar Japanese
source : www.amazon.co.jp


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Hiroaki Sato has written an essay about her with some of her haiku translated, for the journal "Roadrunner."
source : www.google.com


Here are some excerpts from Sato's essay:

In the last year of her life, the poet Tada Chimako (1930-2003) wrote haiku under the guidance of another poet, Takahashi Mutsuo (born 1937). This came about not just because the two poets admired each other... . It also came about because Takahashi is one outstanding exception in Japan. THere the reverence to specialization holds in poetry-writing as well, so that those who write tanka are called 'kajin', those who write haiku 'haijin', and those who write "poems" that belong to neither genre 'shijin', and each of the kajin, haijin, and shijin do not usually pursue the others' genre. In this milieu Takahashi, who started out as a shijin, went on to cover the genres of tanka and haiku, and won major prizes in all three branches.

....it was only after [Tada] was found to have cancer, in November 2001, that she decided to try her hand in haiku. We do not know why she did so, but the haiku she composed over a period of about a year while she was heading toward death turned out to be what Takahashi calls a "sickbed diary." ... [Tada] had a fine sense of style backed up with erudition and a solid grasp of what was possible in the sharply confined genre of haiku.


A selection of about 160 of Tada's haiku, edited and arranged by Takahashi, was published in two formats after her death: one as part of a memorial booklet and the other as an independent haiku book, titled
'Kaze no katami' (A Wind's Mementos).

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The following are all translated by Hiroaki Sato:

'Cancer' that is Crab and also Cancer [headnote]

Shishi-za ryuuseiu hatete Kani-za no byooto e

Constellation Leo meteor shower ends and I to Constellation Crab Ward

Sato's footnote:
Heading to the first haiku. It refers to the fact that 'cancer' is the name of a constellation and as a sign in the Zodiac is the Latin for "crab," and is also the disease so named. The haiku that follows is hypersillabic, with "Shishi-za," Constellation Leo, adding three syllables.


Mi no uchi ni shi wa yawarakaki fuyu no ibo

Inside my body death is a soft wintry wart


Fuyu no hi no urete kozue ni furueori

The winter sun having ripened trembles at the treetop


Tsuwabuki no kage ya koneko no sarekoobe

In the shadow of a crested leopard lies a kitten's skull

Sato's footnote:
['Tsuwabuki'] 'Farfugium japonicum': a plant with bright yellow daisy-like flowers that bloom over roundish, fleshy leaves.


Hootai o hodokeba haru no miira kana

The bandages undone I am the very mummy of spring


Shunshuu ya Kusurimizu choo eki arite

Vernal melancholy: here's a station named Medicine Water

Sato's footnote:
['Kusurimizu'] A train station in Nara. So named because it is near a well-spring named after Kusurimizu Daishi, one of the names of the Buddhist proselytizer Kuukai, Kooboo Daishi (774-835).


Manazashi no ataru ya hata to tsubaki otsu

My eyes hit it and the camellia falls with a thump


Nami wa nami o kurunde marobu haru no suna

The waves roll up the waves and tumble over the spring sand


Komu haru ha haka asobisemu hana no kage

Come spring I'll play with my grave under cherry flowers


Mizusumachi mizu o fumu mizu hekomasete

A water strider treads the water denting the water

[my footnote: compare to a haiku by Murakami Kijoo:

Mizusumachi mizu ni hanete mizu tetsu-no gotoshi

A water-spider
bounces on the water, and
the water is like steel.
Tr. Ueda]


Mukashi chichi ariki asafuku Panama-bo

There once was a Father in a hemp suit and a Panama hat


Mukashi hana sudare makiaguru ude shiroshi

Once upon a time Mother rolled up blinds her arms white


Wasuretsukushite karoki kashira ya kagomakura

Having forgotten all my head is light on a basket pillow

Sato's footnote:
['kagomakura'] A pillow made of wicker or bamboo.


Inabikan shibuki ketatete ame hashiru

Lightning: kicking up splashes the rain runs


Tani kururu tagichi shiroki wa shiroki mama

The valley darkening the water boiling up white remains white


Nagareboshi ware yori ware no nukeotsuru

A shooting star: from my self my self drops away


Umi osoroshi nami ga tsugitsugi te o agete

The sea frightens, the waves raising their hands one after another

[my footnote:
Tada was a teacher who taught in Japan, and in the United States as a guest lecturer.]


葉を脱いで欅すらりと月の中
Ha o nuide keyaki surarito tsuki no naka

Having shed its leaves
the zelkova stands svelte
in the moonlight

. keyaki 欅 伝説 Legends about the Zelkova tree .


Garandoo no yogisha akaruku meshiitaru

A totally vacant night train bright, is blind


Aki fukaki tonari ni tare ka tsume o kiru

Autumn deep someone next-door clips his nails


[my footnote:
perhaps an answer to Basho's haiku:

aki fukaki tonari wa nani o suru hito zo]


Tamanegi ya naka-kawa mukeba nani mo nashi

An onion: peel away seven layers and nothing is left

[my footnote:
Tada attended Tokyo Women's Christian University, and later taught European Literature.
Is this an allusion to Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils?]


Shiwa no te ga shiwa no shiitsu o nobasu fuyu

This winter my wrinkled hand smoothes out a wrinkled sheet


Yamihokete hato o namisuru karasu kana

Totally sick and silly a crow looks down upon a dove


Byooa tsui ni byoosu no naka ni sugomoramu

The sickly crow must finally nestle in her sickly nest


Kusa no se o noritsugu kaze no yukue kana

Riding from one blade of grass to another the wind goes where


- Compiled by Larry Bole
Translating Haiku Forum


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Mirrors

The mirror is always slightly taller than I
It laughs a moment after I laugh
Turning red as a boiled crab
I cut myself from the mirror with shears

*

When my lips draw close, the mirror clouds over
And I vanish behind my own sighs
Like an aristocrat hiding behind his crest
Or a gangster behind his tattoos

*

Oh traveler, go to Lacedaemon and say that in the mirror,
Graveyard of smiles, there is a single gravestone
Painted white, thick with makeup
Where the wind blows alone

Tr. Jeffrey Angles

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source :　shimirin/blogs


From Kaze no Katami 風のかたみ

甕埋めむ陽炎くらき土の中
kame umemu kageroo kuraki tsuchi no naka



She wrote this haiku shortly before her death.



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Japanese Reference

多田 智満子
1930年4月6日（戸籍上は4月1日） - 2003年1月23日


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***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Enomoto Shido Toko

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Enomoto Shidoo 槐本之道 Shido
Tookoo - 東湖 - Toko "East Lake"

1659?−1708
? ～宝永5年1月5日）


He was a medicine merchant of Osaka, called
Fushimiya Hisaemon 伏見屋久右衛門

He was one of the Osaka school of Basho students 大坂蕉門 and one who saw Basho on his death bed.
Basho came to Osaka in October (元禄7年9月9日) to stay at the home of his disciple Shoodoo 酒堂亭 Shodo and than moved on to Shido's home 之道亭. Basho wanted to reconcile his two disciples who were fighting each other. So he tried to stay at the home of each one for a certain time.
Basho left the home of Shido on the fifth day of the 10th lunar month 10月5日 and went to the temple hall Minami Midoo 南御堂 because he was so ill.

Tookoo 東湖 was his first haiku name, later Basho asked him to call himself Shidoo 之道.

His last haiku name was "Mapel Bamboo" 楓竹.


His main rival haikai master in Osaka was
. - Shadoo, Shadō 洒堂 Shado - - Hamada Chinseki 浜田珍夕/珍碩 - .


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Matsuo Basho liked makuwa uri melons very much and wrote quite a few haiku about them.

He wrote this haiku for his student  :
元禄3年6月30日 (1690) (for Shodo)
or for
元禄7年9月 (1694) (for Shido)
? the sources are not clear on this one.
Another possibility is that he wrote this after leaving Shido and went on to Iga Ueno.

He wanted to teach Shido a lesson:

Do not become like me.
Find your own way and haiku voice.


我に似な二ッに割れし真桑瓜
我に似るなふたつに割れし真桑瓜
ware ni niru na futatsu ni wareshi makuwa uri


source : mori152329



Don't be like me
even if we resemble
two halves of a melon
Tr. Stephen Addiss



don't take after me:
cut in two,
a musk melon
Tr. David Landis Barnhill



Do not resemble me -
Never be like a musk melon
Cut in two identical halves
Tr. Makoto Ueda



. . . . .


quote
Basho was telling Toko to have an original voice that didn't sound like an imitation of his phraseology and cultural interpretation. He wanted his student to be original and not a copycat. Basho didn't originate the 5-7-5 meter nor haiku, then called haikai.

He refined and legitimized it as a single genre apart from linked verse and tanka. It wasn't his form to change. Like a singer, the originality comes not with the genre of music, but with the original stylization it is sung in.
source : simply haiku 2012








A Japanese saying for two people who resemble each other without being twins is

uri futatsu 瓜二つ like two melon-halves

. makuwa uri 真桑瓜 Cucumis makuwa .
and more of the Melon Haiku from Basho


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雲のみね今のは比叡に似た物か
kumo no mine ima no wa Hie ni nita mono ka

a peak of clouds -
this one looks just
like Mount Hieizan

from Sarumino 猿蓑


. Mount Hiei (比叡山 Hiei-zan) .



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More of his haiku


三ケ月に鱶のあたまをかくしけり　（『猿蓑』）

一袋これや鳥羽田のことし麥　（『猿蓑』）

十五日立や睦月の古手賣　（『炭俵』）

老僧も袈裟かづきたる花見哉　（『炭俵』）

白うをのしろき匂ひや杉の箸　（『炭俵』）

五六十海老つゐやして□（はぜ）一ﾂ　（『續猿蓑』）

灌佛や釈迦と提婆は従弟どし　（『續猿蓑』）

source : itoyo/basho


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Japanese Reference

槐本之道


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***** . Enomoto Kikaku (1661-1707) .
Kikaku, Takarai Kikaku 宝井其角


***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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Sakai Hoitsu

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Sakai Hoitsu 酒井抱一
Sakai Hooitsu （さかい　ほういつ) Sakai Hōitsu

Birth dates vary : （1761 - 1828) - (1760 - 1828)
Aug. 1, 1761 - Jan. 4, 1829
宝暦11年7月1日(1761年8月1日) - 文政11年11月29日( 1829年1月4日)）


He was a famous painter and poet.
Born as the second son to a Daimyo family, he had the leisure to pursue painting. At age 37 he fell ill and became a monk at a temple belonging to the Nishi Honganji sect.
He retired from his post at the temple in 1809 and lived in retirement at Negishi in Edo.
He also wrote poems, haiku and more sartirical kyooka and painted haiga.

quote
Japanese painter of the Rimpa school. He is famous for reviving the style and popularity of Ogata Kōrin, and for creating a number of reproductions of Kōrin's work.
Hōitsu was born in Edo; his father was the lord (daimyo) of Himeji Castle in Harima Province.
The Sakai daimyō clan originated in Mikawa province. They claim descent from Minamoto no Arichika.
..... Moving to Kyoto, Hōitsu began his studies in art in the Kanō school before moving on to study under Utagawa Toyoharu of the ukiyo-e style.


©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !




CLICK for more of his paintings.





stamp with his painting
四季花鳥図巻

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quote

追善の形象 : 江戸琳派の草花と
Flowers in a Vase :
Sakai Hoitsu's Symbol of Homage to Ogata Korin

Among the paintings left by Sakai Hoitsu (1760-1828), a late-Edo-period painter known for reviving the Rinpa (or Korin) school of painting in the city of Edo, is a singular work entitled Kannon (i.e., the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara).

This work differs from the usual Oriental "white-robed Avalokitesvara" paintings in that Kannon is not shown holding in her hand either the standard lotus flower, or sprig of willow in a water jar. Rather, in front of her and to the viewer's right there appears a porcelain celadon vase in which five summer flowers -
hollyhocks, pinks, lychnises, hydrangeas, and lilies - have been arranged.

In contrast to india ink paintings of Kannon, the flowers in Hoitsu's work are richly colored, attracting and holding the viewer's gaze. It is known that the creation of Kannon was connected to the hundredth anniversary of the death of Ogata Korin (1658-1716). Korin was the prime mover behind the earlier flourishing of the Rinpa school and the painter most highly regarded by Hoitsu, who donated the work to Korin's family temple, Myoken-ji, in Kyoto, where it remains today.

It has therefore traditionally been inferred that Hoitsu "arranged" the flowers in the vase in commemoration of Korin's death anniversary and that he used summer flowers because Korin died in June. What has never been clear, however, is why the five flowers noted above were chosen ; indeed, Hoitsu's Flowers in a Vase, painted for the same anniversary, contains the identical five kinds of flowers arranged in a water jar.

Hoitsu obviously had a reason for selecting them. In my paper, I will attempt to discern what Hoitsu's intended meaning may have been. The particular flower or bird, or the particular combination of flowers and birds, found in an Oriental flower-and-bird painting ordinarily has an auspicious meaning associated with it, one that the members of the painter's audience will usually be able to identify owing to their shared cultural experience.

No traditional, specific meaning, however, can be discerned in the combination of the five summer flowers in Hoitsu's two paintings. To unlock the meaning, I have investigated how the five flowers have been used in classical tanka and haiku poetry - in which Hoitsu himself was unusually well versed - beginning with the eighth-century Man'yoshu.

For example, the combination of hollyhocks and lilies has traditionally meant, "We will meet in the next world" when it appears in classical poetry.

I found other meanings for other groupings of the five flowers in question. In the course of my research it became clear that Hoitsu clearly did not use the five flowers merely to commemorate Korin's death in the summer ; being familliar with Japanese history and literature, Hoitsu put together his combination with scruplous care in order to express the meaning he desired. Another point of interest is that Korin was particularly fond of the hollyhock and, in fact, replaced his family crest with one depicting a stylized version of this flower.

This helps explain why, in Hoitsu's two paintings, the hollyhock is placed highest in the shin position, the all-important central position in traditional flower arrangement. Modern critics tend to view the beautiful flower arrangements in the paintings of the Rinpa school, including the two works discussed here, as random combinations. This evaluation focuses on the beauty of the paintings' form, but essentially denies their interpretive value. However, I believe that the surprising hidden meanings woven into the paintings of the Rinpa school are one of the greatest sources of the paintings' appeal.
source : ci.nii.ac.jp


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江戸絵画と文学　
Edo Painters and Literati

His painting of Kannon 観音図 - 観音像 is mentioned in the book.
今橋理子


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星一つ残して落つる花火かな
hoshi hitotsu nokoshite otsuru hanabi kana

one star
is left after the fall
of the fireworks

This poem is located in the sixth lunar month.


source :　art.jcc-okinawa.net

from 江戸ノ四季
Illustrations of the four seasons of Edo

Start looking from here : January to April:
source : art.jcc-okinawa.net


quote
Hanabi: Fireworks

Fireworks fall,
leavingg a single star
Hoitsu

Fireworks are often called the art of the ephemeral, but I'm not so sure about this. I wonder whether the love of fireworks really has anything in common with reverence for the cherry blossoms, though both scatter and fall bravely.

One can certainly say, as Ogatsu Kyosuke did in his book "Fireworks: The Art of Fire", that "Fireworks blossom gorgeously in the sky and next moment fade away. It is this expendability that constitutes their beauty; the art of fireworks is an art of complete consumption in which nothing remains behind." No doubt many would agree.

In Hoitsu's haiku, the falling fireworks are in the process of being expended, a process which is completed in a moment. The star that never fades in the night sky serves to confirm this.

"Not a tattoo on the sky, the many-colored dots of fireworks permeate the night and are no more."

Read more : Kusamori Shin'ichi
source : bibliotecamil.blogspot.jp


It might have been the most bright star in the constellation of scorpius (scorpio), Antares, who appeares red in the night sky.
Antares is the sixteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky.


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「朝顔」asagao - morning glories
Himeji Museum （姫路市立美術館）


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macha tea cup with flower motives by Hoitsu

Look at more
source : itempost.jp


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Japanese Reference

- 酒井抱一 -


*****************************
Related words

***** Introducing Japanese Haiku Poets　


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