Loaded June and Chika Sagawa
In times like these, when the world seems harsh and makes too little sense, and questions run round and round in my mind, I seek solace and direction in poetry.
On Wednesday, I attended a poetry event at Temple University Japan on the book that won the 2016 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation: The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa, translated by Sawako Nakayasu.
Chika Sagawa (or, in Japanese name order, Sagawa Chika) was born in Hokkaido in 1911, and in 1928, at age 17 and against her family's wishes, moved to Tokyo. After immersing herself in the cosmopolitan Tokyo literary community, she began publishing her poems. She died of stomach cancer in 1936 at the early age of 24. As Sawako Nakayasu's introduction to the collection of poems says, "Sagawa Chika is Japan's first female Modernist poet, whose work resonated deeply with, and helped shape, the most dynamic shifts and developments of the poetry of the era."
Read the five Chika Sagawa poems from the collection that appear on the PEN website.
The event was a fascinating introduction to Sagawa's work, to the pre-Pacific War world of poetry in Tokyo, and to Sawako Nakayasu's process of translating these poems that are full of the natural world yet with a sense of menace often lurking between the lines. Poet Mariko Nagai (author of the verse novel Dust of Eden) moderated.
Sawako Nakayasu and Mariko NagaiIn this week of mourning for the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, in this week of asking so many questions, in this week of mulling my homes in both Japan and the U.S., and with some inspiration across years and languages from Chika Sagawa, here is my poem for this Poetry Friday.
Loaded June
valley steaminghand beneath a front gatestrews kibbles for a catthe sun leers over the hillspupils shuffle to schoola girl pulls on her shoescrow hops, stands bywarbler dribbles a song“could it happen here?could it happen here?” girl steps into the roadcat spies the warblerwaiting on a plum twiga distant warbler replies“not here no, not here no”one by one the crow steals the damp kibblesthe mud path driestoday’s hydrangeastomorrow parched“could it happen here?could it happen here?”
the girl begins to run
© Holly Thompson, All Rights Reserved
On Wednesday, I attended a poetry event at Temple University Japan on the book that won the 2016 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation: The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa, translated by Sawako Nakayasu.
Chika Sagawa (or, in Japanese name order, Sagawa Chika) was born in Hokkaido in 1911, and in 1928, at age 17 and against her family's wishes, moved to Tokyo. After immersing herself in the cosmopolitan Tokyo literary community, she began publishing her poems. She died of stomach cancer in 1936 at the early age of 24. As Sawako Nakayasu's introduction to the collection of poems says, "Sagawa Chika is Japan's first female Modernist poet, whose work resonated deeply with, and helped shape, the most dynamic shifts and developments of the poetry of the era."
Read the five Chika Sagawa poems from the collection that appear on the PEN website.
The event was a fascinating introduction to Sagawa's work, to the pre-Pacific War world of poetry in Tokyo, and to Sawako Nakayasu's process of translating these poems that are full of the natural world yet with a sense of menace often lurking between the lines. Poet Mariko Nagai (author of the verse novel Dust of Eden) moderated.
Sawako Nakayasu and Mariko NagaiIn this week of mourning for the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, in this week of asking so many questions, in this week of mulling my homes in both Japan and the U.S., and with some inspiration across years and languages from Chika Sagawa, here is my poem for this Poetry Friday.Loaded June
valley steaminghand beneath a front gatestrews kibbles for a catthe sun leers over the hillspupils shuffle to schoola girl pulls on her shoescrow hops, stands bywarbler dribbles a song“could it happen here?could it happen here?” girl steps into the roadcat spies the warblerwaiting on a plum twiga distant warbler replies“not here no, not here no”one by one the crow steals the damp kibblesthe mud path driestoday’s hydrangeastomorrow parched“could it happen here?could it happen here?”
the girl begins to run
© Holly Thompson, All Rights Reserved
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