tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post2465867656776169095..comments2024-03-28T12:59:41.910-04:00Comments on NeverEnding Story: To the Lighthouse: Ishikawa Takuboku's Conception of "Poems to Eat"Chen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐http://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-77877298414687870602021-08-20T17:18:45.409-04:002021-08-20T17:18:45.409-04:00Thankyou for all your information on tanka, haiku ...Thankyou for all your information on tanka, haiku and also their translation. into Chinese. It motivates and encourages me. Best of days. Lisbeth Ho (Blue Verandah) Lisbeth Hohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13918209968726113493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-26930076854285367802013-03-20T21:31:54.567-04:002013-03-20T21:31:54.567-04:00Below is an excerpt from Ruth Linhart's A Writ...Below is an excerpt from Ruth Linhart's A Writer´s "Sad Toys," http://www.ruthlinhart.com/japan_21.htm<br /><br />The Japanese poet Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912) started his literary career as a tanka poet, and it is this literary genre which made him popular in Japan. Yet the poet´s attitude towards this literary form was rather ambivalent, and it is one of the tragic aspects of his life that, judging from his letters and diaries, he despised the genre in which he was so gifted.<br /><br />In his essay Jidai Heisoku no Genjô (The Stagnation of the Times) he appeals: "What I demand from literature is criticism!" As lyric poetry seemed inappropriate to him as a means for "criticism of our times" and not to answer the need for social reform, he thought little of it. Nevertheless, at the same time, he was emotionally very much inclined towards tanka poetry. In his essay Uta no Iroiro (Aspects of the Tanka) he states: "Tanka are my sad toys." His poems, he explains, are but a means of self-expression, like a diary, "sad" because he wrote them when unhappy, and "sad" because of their uselessness to society. Moreover, there existed a conflict between his goal to become a successful writer of novels, which he could not achieve, and his inconsistent and immature character, which made him more suited for the little form of tanka.<br />Chen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐https://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.com