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Portrait of Mitsuhashi Toshio |
Mitsuhashi Toshio (1920-2001) joined a haiku group at age fifteen, and his haiku began to be accepted by magazines the following year. He was drawn to the Shinkō Haiku (Newly Rising Haiku) movement, particularly its advocacy of rejecting the required inclusion of seasonal words.
In 1937, when Japan expanded its war in China and war fever gripped the country, some trying to distance themselves from “traditional haiku” started writing what they called senka sōbō haiku—haiku “imagining and watching the fire of war from afar.” Mitsuhashi wrote many haiku in this genre.
But the Japanese government deemed the Newly Rising Haiku movement inimical to kokutai, the “national polity,” for its liberalism. The police arrested its leaders beginning in 1940. That stopped Mitsuhashi in his tracks, according to his own account. Silenced, he kept writing, at times turning back to explore “classicism” in haiku. But it was not until 1966 that he published his first book of haiku—a selection of 321 pieces titled Phantom Shark (Maboroshi no fuka). None of the poems included here and written between the 1920s and 1945 were published prior to the end of the war.
From the start, Mitsuhashi tended to stray from the classical haiku requisite of describing what is observed at hand, even as he stuck to the 17-syllable format, prewar orthography, and premodern grammar. For example, he explained that he wrote the first haiku selected here not because he watched an actual May Day parade celebrating the importance of labor, but because he realized he was born in the year the first May Day was celebrated and that thought stayed with him. He wrote this poem in 1937, two years after the government banned May Day altogether.
Likewise, he explained that he wrote the second poem evoking the capital in flames in 1945, not because he witnessed any of the air raids in Tokyo—he was a soldier overseas when those raids occurred—but because when he was demobilized and returned to Japan to find his house gone, he wanted to “retrospectively experience” (tsuitaiken) the burning of his house.
Takahashi Mutsuo, the distinguished free-verse poet who also won major prizes in traditional tanka (short poems usually of five unrhymed lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables) and haiku, characterized Mitsuhashi’s work as “pure haiku”—results of an attempt to figure out what might be accomplished within the confines of 5-7-5 syllables. The poems included here date from the 1930s through 1993.
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Tokyo Firebombing, May 26, 1945. Wikicommons. |
| メーデーの赤旗巻かれ棒赤し Mēdē no akahata makare bō akashi |
A May Day rally— a flagpole becomes red, furled by the red flag. |
| いつせいに柱の燃ゆる都かな Issei ni hashira no moyuru miyako kana |
All at the same time wooden pillars are aflame in the capital— |
| Note: Major air raids on Tokyo began on the night of March 9, 1945. | |
| こがらしや壁の中から藁がとぶ Kogarashi ya kabe no naka kara wara ga tobu |
A tree-blighting wind— out of the mud and straw wall pieces of straw fly. |
| こがらしや壁の中から藁がとぶ Kogarashi ya kabe no naka kara wara ga tobu |
A tree-blighting wind— out of the mud and straw wall pieces of straw fly. |
| 草焼けば兵のかたちの遺骨現る Kusa yakeba hei no katachi no ikotsu aru |
As we burn grass, the bones emerge from the field in a soldier’s shape. |
| 凍る夜へ没しゆく貨車引張られ Kōru yo e bosshi yuku kasha hipparare |
Into frozen night freight cars vanish out of sight, tugged by an engine. |
| Note: The allusion is to soldiers heading to the battlefront. | |
| 初日いま楕円核爆発あるな Hatsuhi ima daen kakubakuhatsu aruna |
The first rising sun Elliptical—may there be no nuclear blasts. |
| Note: The elliptical shape of the sun evokes the image of the sun during the 1945 nuclear explosions and the postwar nuclear tests. “Aruna” can be read in the classical Japanese as meaning “there must not be any more.” | |
| 真綿ぐるみのほぞの緒や燃えてなし Mawatagurumi no hozo no wo ya moetenashi |
Umbilical cord and the silk floss wrapping it burned up and was gone. |
| 産みどめの母より赤く流れ出む Umidome no haha yori akaku nagare demu |
This is the last birth— mother had resolved, and yet, life still flows on, red. |
| 戦没の友のみ若し霜柱 Senbotsu no tomo nomi wakashi shimobashira |
Our comrades who died in action alone are still young—frost columns. |
| 満月や水兵永く立泳 Mangetsu ya suihei nagaku tachioyogi |
A full moon tonight— sailors tread water for long, waiting and waiting. |
| Note: The poem suggests sailors after their ship was sunk. | |
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Signed Hinomaru flag of Eihachi Yamaguchi. Wikicommons. |
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| 風呂敷と国旗といづれ形見かな Furoshiki to kokki to izure katami kana |
The furoshiki or the national flag, which will be my keepsake? |
| Note: Before a soldier went to fight in the war, people in his town would sign their names on his flag, praying for his success in battle. Furoshiki is a cloth used to wrap around belongings during transport. | |
| 手をあげて此世の友は来たりけり Te o agete kono yo no tomo wa kitarikeri |
Raising his hand, our friend in this world has come to his companions. |
| Note: “Friends in the other world” denotes deceased comrades. | |
| 泣寝入る幼な児強し春の星 Nakineiru osanago tsuyoshi haru no hoshi |
A baby crying himself to sleep lustily— stars in springtime. |
| 天も地も米軍基地化のばつた飛ぶ Ten mo chi mo beigun kichika no batta tobu |
Both heaven and earth turn into a U.S. base big grasshoppers fly. |
| Note: The large grasshopper shōryō batta (Acrida cinerea) makes a distinct sound as it flies. | |
| 十七字みな伏字なれ暮の春 Jūshichi moji mina fuseji nare kure no haru |
Let all seventeen syllables be turned blank spring as it darkens. |
| Note: The author alludes to wartime censorship. | |
| 戦争にたかる無数の蠅しづか Sensō ni takaru musū no hae shizuka |
Swarming and feeding on war the numerous flies all hushed and quiet. |
| 押黙る海山や来む核の冬 Oshidamaru umiyama ya komu kaku no fuyu |
Mountains and oceans keep deadly silent—winter of the nuclear age. |
| 昭和出征惨たり銃に巻く繃帯 Shōwa shussei santari jū ni maku hōtai |
Going to the front in Shōwa was wretched—guns wrapt in bandages.. |
| 被爆者忌脱ぐ汗のシャツ裏返る Hibakushaki nugu ase no shatsu uragaeru |
A-bomb victims’ day— I take off my sweaty shirt. It turns inside out. |
| Note: The poet perhaps hints at skin peeling off. | |
| 戦車の音と犬の動悸を抱きゐたり Sensha no oto to inu no dōki o daki’itari |
The noise of a tank and a dog’s pulsating heart I remain hugging. |
| 満月の裏はくらやみ魂祭 Mangetsu no ura wa kurayami tamamatsuri |
Festival of souls— the back side of the full moon is utterly dark. |
| Note: The festival of souls takes place from the thirteenth to fifteenth day of the seventh month (lunar calendar) when ancestral souls are welcomed home and prayers said for their repose. | |
For these and other poems, please see Mitsuhashi Toshio zenkushū (Collected Haiku of Mitsuhashi Toshio) (Tokyo: Rippūshobō, 1990).
