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Songs from the Slums
Nashville 1935 Cokesbury Press. Interpretations by Lois Erickson, introduction by Sherwood Eddy. Poetry. Sm.8vo., illustrations by Julian Brazelton, black cloth. Near Fine.
96 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1935
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 14, 2015
As I'm on a quest for non-white historical mentors (a longer story that you can feel free to ask me about, I've greatly benefited from the legacy of many of the white european/american heroes of the faith, so this isn't taking away from that) I have come across Toyohiko Kagawa, a Japanese minister who moved into the slums of Japan, was an evangelist but also a lead organizer for workers' rights.
I picked up this volume of his poetry from his time in slum communities. Many are word pictures of the people he met, the people he lived with. It suffers from a bit of a melodramatic translation in my opinion (which keeps it from 5 stars) and also an over reliance on creating rhyming verse, in the english, but I can only imagine the work put in by the translator and for that I am grateful.
Enjoyed this and it will be easy to pick up again, only wish for a new translation .
I picked up this volume of his poetry from his time in slum communities. Many are word pictures of the people he met, the people he lived with. It suffers from a bit of a melodramatic translation in my opinion (which keeps it from 5 stars) and also an over reliance on creating rhyming verse, in the english, but I can only imagine the work put in by the translator and for that I am grateful.
Enjoyed this and it will be easy to pick up again, only wish for a new translation .
July 26, 2021
Toyohiko Kagawa was a considerably more interesting person than his poetry would indicate. To know this would be to read this book and then read the story of his life. Nevertheless, he was a person who declared his faith and lived it - and for that he has my respect. But these considerations are separate from this book.
I think that perhaps a better translator would have helped his poetry along. I recently read a translation of "The Tale of Genji" by Murasaki Shikibu and it was much more clearly translated. Of course it may be the difference between prose translation and poetry translation.
One phrase that he used in a poem entitled "The Waves are Silent" (p. 80) was "the sleeves were wet with tears." Immediately I recalled that this was a phrase repeated in "The Tale of Genji". So I found it interesting that his work connected with another Japanese author in this way across nine centuries.
MCMXXXV - that's right, 1935. This book was sold and published before World War II. The copy I have is an original with the dust jacket still intact (a little bit of fraying on the edges). At the time it sold for $1.50. To hold in my hands and read a book that has survived in such good condition over so many decades - no matter how tepid the content - was for me a big aspect of why I kept reading this book.
I am glad I read it. I would only recommend it for nostalgic reasons. Reading about the person who wrote it was significantly more interesting. I recommend you Google him and find out more.
I think that perhaps a better translator would have helped his poetry along. I recently read a translation of "The Tale of Genji" by Murasaki Shikibu and it was much more clearly translated. Of course it may be the difference between prose translation and poetry translation.
One phrase that he used in a poem entitled "The Waves are Silent" (p. 80) was "the sleeves were wet with tears." Immediately I recalled that this was a phrase repeated in "The Tale of Genji". So I found it interesting that his work connected with another Japanese author in this way across nine centuries.
MCMXXXV - that's right, 1935. This book was sold and published before World War II. The copy I have is an original with the dust jacket still intact (a little bit of fraying on the edges). At the time it sold for $1.50. To hold in my hands and read a book that has survived in such good condition over so many decades - no matter how tepid the content - was for me a big aspect of why I kept reading this book.
I am glad I read it. I would only recommend it for nostalgic reasons. Reading about the person who wrote it was significantly more interesting. I recommend you Google him and find out more.
September 29, 2021
BEWARE! The poems in this collection are easy to summarize. Most follow this pattern:
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
The latter poems are a very little different:
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
Jesus loves me
and that is about it.
One problem is the unremitting negativity of both types of verse. These poems are not enlightening or profound; they are not redemptive; they are just negative. The latter type does not earn the "Jesus," which does not grow naturally from the previous lines. It is just tacked on. Granted, there is an old tradition of doing exactly this in some of the Psalms, but I do not find that tack-on satisfying either. Those of us ill-at-ease with the way that Fundamentalist Christianity puts Band-Aids over complex social problems that defy platitudes and easy solutions will find troubling banality in these latter poems.
I cannot read Kagawa in Japanese so I do not know if his verse is rhymed or if any rhymes are as trite as those in this translation by Lois J. Erickson, called an interpretation on the dust jacket, but there is not a single line that deserves praise. This book is awful.
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
The latter poems are a very little different:
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
Life is awful in the slums
Jesus loves me
and that is about it.
One problem is the unremitting negativity of both types of verse. These poems are not enlightening or profound; they are not redemptive; they are just negative. The latter type does not earn the "Jesus," which does not grow naturally from the previous lines. It is just tacked on. Granted, there is an old tradition of doing exactly this in some of the Psalms, but I do not find that tack-on satisfying either. Those of us ill-at-ease with the way that Fundamentalist Christianity puts Band-Aids over complex social problems that defy platitudes and easy solutions will find troubling banality in these latter poems.
I cannot read Kagawa in Japanese so I do not know if his verse is rhymed or if any rhymes are as trite as those in this translation by Lois J. Erickson, called an interpretation on the dust jacket, but there is not a single line that deserves praise. This book is awful.
August 15, 2025
I think the translation is pretty lacking; I really didn't enjoy this collection. The author, however, sounds like a very interesting and compassionate man...I'd love to read a biography or something like that.
July 2, 2022
A short collection of poems by a minister in the slums. The poems feel psalm-like in their emotional expression and pleas to God.
December 4, 2025
Finished a poignant collection of poems, SONGS FROM THE SLUMS, by Toyohiko Kagawa (1888-1960), about his experiences living among the people in the Shinkawa ghetto in Kobe, Japan. Kagawa was a Christian social reformer and prolific author. I first read about Tagawa in an essay by a Japanese-American student whose family had been sent to one of the internment camps in Poston, Arizona during World War II.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews