Five Poems

Yosano Akiko


その友はもだえのはてに歌を見ぬわれを召す神きぬ薄黒き


Pronunciation
sono tomo wa/modae no hate ni/uta wo minu/ware wo mesu kami/kinu usuguroki


This agony within,
The unknown music;
Finally it's this, girlfriend,
The God who invites us,
Lightly into darkness.





そのなさけかけますな君罪の子が狂ひのはてを見むと伝ひたまへ


Pronunciation
sono nasake/kakemasu na kimi/tsumi no ko ga/kurui no hate wo/mi mu to iitama e


Your sense of sin,
This compassionate you;
All that I'm saying is,
It'll drive me insane,
You innocent child.





夏やせの我やねたみの二十妻里居の夏に京を説く君


Pronunciation
natsu yase no/ware ya netami no/hatachi zuma/satoi no natsu ni/kyo wo toku kimi


What a summer,
One wife at twenty;
A village of wives waits,
So enviously, you see,
Your word from Kyoto.





こもり居に集の歌ぬくねたみ妻五月のやどの二人うつくしき


Pronunciation
komorii ni/shu no uta nuku/netami zuma/satsuki no yado no/futari utsukushiki


A jealous wife,
A collection of poems;
May's been stifling, hasn't it,
Sheltering us together,
And all so beautifully.




春みじかし何に不滅の命ぞとちからある乳を手にさぐらせぬ


Pronunciation
haru mijikashi/nani ni fumetsu no/inochi zo to/chikara aru chi wo/te ni sagurasenu


Spring shortens,
And into immortal life!
There's power, to touch,
There's blood, in my breasts,
A good place for his hand.

translated from the Japanese by Stephen Cahaly

Yosano Akiko's language was thought through classical Japanese constructions, yet conceived through an eye that observed changes to her society as a result of Western influence. While these changes often produced crises in many Japanese artists, which are reflected strongly in their work, hers rarely lost out on the historical ironies. Because she was so revolutionary, she has often been treated accordingly in English literary criticism and translation. As with Emily Dickinson, there's a smile to her religious and erotic themes, which should remain the challenge of all her translators.

Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) revolutionized Japanese poetry. At the turn of the 20th century she produced an abundance of poems that would eventually be selected for a collection called Tangled Hair. Arguably, as far as form, content, and range, her rejuvenation of what had become a conventional form makes her collection Japan’s equivalent of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, historically and poetically.

Stephen Cahaly (b. 1968) has lived in Japan and is currently residing in Pompano Beach, Florida. His website on poetry and philosophy can be found here.