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 Contributors: Poets and Translators: Kazue Shinkawa Rin Ishigaki Shinmin Sakamura Fumio Kataoka Kosaburo Nagatsu Jotaro Wakamatsu Naoshi Koriyama Hal Sirowitz Stanley H. Barkan Kelven Ka-shing LIT Peter Thabit Jones Mike Graves Bishnupada Ray Hassanal Abdullah Dhanonjoy Saha Matin Raihan Naznin Seamon Anisur Rahman Apu Tushar Prasun Shiblee Shaheed Book Review: Nicholas Birns Caroline Gill Interview: William Heyen Bill Wolak Cover Art:
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Six Japanese PoetsTranslated by Naoshi KoriyamaKazue Shinkawa (1929 -)Kazue Shinkawa (1929- ) was born in Yuki City, Ibaraki Prefecture. She started writing poetry under the guidance of Saijo Yaso, while she was a student at Yuki Girls’ High School. She has published many books of verse, and is one of the most popular poets in Japan. Her Complete Collection of Poems was published in 2000. WHERE AM I GOING? Where am I going, I wonder? Life is a wilderness. Even so, one has to go along by walking on foot. On a windy day the thicket of shrubs rustled, ruffling my hair. Days and months pass, drifting away. Love too drifts away. Even so, we can’t live without love, can we? On a windy day old memories turned up, hurting my old wounds anew which I thought had healed. The white road continues on and on endlessly. Life is a journey. Even so, there should be some branches on which one can alight like a bird. On a windy day I walked along, elling myself, “There are flowers in the fields far away.” ON NEW YEAR’S DAY I feel as if a new mountain arose abruptly somewhere . . . I feel as if a new river began to flow somewhere . . . I feel as if a new window opened, releasing a thousand pigeons somewhere . . . I feel as if a new love began to come toward me somewhere . . . I feel as if a new song is about to come out and the lip of the world is about to utter, “Ah!” somewhere . . . I HAVEN’T WRITTEN A SINGLE LINE You have been flowing, haven’t you, River? You didn’t sleep last night, as always. You kept diligently washing the round moon reflected on your face. I saw the moon returning to the western sky at dawn, washed clean white by you and a little thinner. I have been staying at this old hotel by your riverside for three days now. On the desk by the window my writing paper remains open, not a line written in it. How can I ever hope to write a line in front of the wonderful line of yours? You have in your single line a thousand fish swimming. You have been singing songs since time immemorial, and moreover, singing a new song every day. You give moisture to rice paddies and gardens on either side, lighting lamps under the roof of each house. Your hand has a firm grip on the essentials of the lives of people living there. The hand sometimes runs errands elegantly, carrying a message of a young man of upper reaches of the river to a girl of lower reaches, entrusting his feeling to a flower. I am poor, dried up both in mind and body. It’s because I wanted to lie by your side and partake some portion of your fertility that I came to this hotel close by you. You keep flowing, don’t you, River? While flowing, you teach me that on the other side there is Nirvana. I wonder if I can ever get there, when I have never washed a moon’s shadow, nor carried a single flower. You, River. Translated from the Japanese by Naoshi Koriyama Rin Ishigaki (1920 - 2004)Rin Ishigaki (1920 - 2004) was born in Tokyo. Upon finishing elementary school, she started to work at a bank in 1934 as a maid. She started to be known with her poetry around 1950. One of her poems, “Hands,” is included in World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (Norton, 1998). A DOORPLATE It is essential that you put a doorplate by yourself where you live. The nameplate other people post up for you where you stay has never been good. When I got in the hospital my doorplate was posted, saying “Miss RinIshigaki,” not just“Rin Ishigaki.” When you stay at a hotel, no doorplate is posted on your room. But when you get into the cremator in time, they will hang a nameplate on the closed door, saying “Miss Rin Ishigaki.” Can I ever refuse that? You should not put “Miss” or “Madam” before your name. It is essential that you post up your doorplate by yourself where you live. You should not let others put a nameplate to the place where your mind is, either. It’s good just as “Rin Ishigaki.” A CHILDREN’S STORY ABOUT ATOMIC BOMBS A war broke out. Two airplanes taking off from the two countries dropped their atomic bombs on each other’s enemy country at the same time. The two countries were completely destroyed. Only the crew members of the two planes survived of all the human beings in the world. How miserably or how happily did they live together, I wonder? This may become a new legend. A SEASON OF SNOWSLIDES They say that the time has come, and that snowslides occur because the season of snowslides has come. The vow for eternal peace and the peace of mind we had when our country had thrown away arms. When we got free from the power and conflicts of other countries of the world, the hibernation of our humble country was good in its own way, no matter how inconvenient it was in some ways. Peace, eternal peace, the silver-white world covered with the color of peace only. Yes, the word “peace” came falling like powder snow, piling up thick, on this narrow land of Japan. While patching up my broken stockings or knitting something, I would look out, taking a rest from time to time. And I felt relieved. No bombs exploded and there were no red fires here. And I occasionally felt that I was more comfortable in this country than in any other country seeking hegemony. But time passed quite quickly, and while the firewood I put in is still burning, they have now begun buzzing, saying that the time has come, and that they can’t resist the times. The snow stopped long ago. Under the pile of snow tiny buds of ambitions, falsehood, or greed are concealed. If an utterance: “As everyone else has come to behave like that, there’s nothing we can do to stop it,” begins to roll somewhere in a distant peak, other piles of snow are prompted to join, and all the snow now comes rolling down, saying, “It can’t be helped,” “It can’t be helped,” “It can’t be helped.” Look! The snowslide! The words gather more and more momentum, ever spreading out, ever approaching. I can hear it. I can hear it. Translated from the Japanese by Naoshi Koriyama Shinmin Sakamura (1909 - 2006)Shinmin Sakamura (1909 - 2006) was born in Kumamoto Prefecture. He went to Korea in 1934 and returned in 1946 to settle down in Tobe, Ehime Prefecture. Taught Japanese at a high school. His philosophy of life is based on Buddhism. Some of his poems are reprinted in school textbook anthologies in Japan. THE PURE HOUR “You say you always get up at 3 or 4, don’t you? and what do you do?” the other guy asks me suspiciously. I just laugh, “Ha, ha,” but on some days I don’t do anything. On some days I just wait for daybreak blankly. On many days, I just sit, thinking of Rilke, or pondering on Cezanne. But for me, this vacant hour is most important, the tranquil hour before dawn. This pure hour is most pleasant to me, just sitting quietly, building up my own world. WHEN VAN GOGH’S VOICE SOUNDS LIKE A REVELATION When van Gogh’s voice sounds like a divine revelation, I rise to my feet, moving from despair to hope, from death to life, from the present to the future. Gogh! Give me a soul that won’t collapse. Give me an unyielding strength with which I can live for art, enduring poverty. JUST BECAUSE Just because it’sheart-rending, don’t close your eyes on it. Just because it oppresses you, don’t hesitate to speak out. You should see what you should see. You should speak out what you should speak out. You should call out to every corner of the world. You should appeal to entire humanity for the anger, for the grief, for the lamentation of Hiroshima. Translated from the Japanese by Naoshi Koriyama Fumio Kataoka (1933 - 2014)Fumio Kataoka (1933 - 2014) was born in Kochi Prefecture. Graduated from Meiji University. He belonged to a poetry group, “Chikyu (The Earth)” While teaching at a high school, he wrote poetry, and won some poetry awards. THE NIGHT The night seems to be like a boat made of plain wood. Each of us has not carefully looked at each other, and each one rides one’s own boat. We need to let the current drift us from now on. My wife and daughter, my father and mother, too, passing through me and out of me, go drifting each toward the distant nebula. Parting from each other’s life is not cruel. Like a hackberry tree nonchalantly swaying all the time, soaking its branches’ shadows in the surface of the river in the daytime, our parting is brought together in the nebula of human blood sadly swirling. I lie on the sideless boat, feeling rightly congenial. It seems I have reached the end of the current. At the village of cells that keep me awake, the air is clear, and I wish to drift on even farther to the endless expanse. CHERRY BLOSSOMS At night cherry blossoms scatter toward heaven. The world is a retina and each petal quivers at the endlessness of its warm world. In time the petals become a flock of cranes and flutter away into the expanse of death. * As for its color of light pink, in what part of the petal is the bashfulness concerning its consciousness retained? In the cherry blossom season, the light falling on us obliquely sometimes urges the bright scenery to move toward the gloomy horizon. At that time, for a very short time, cherry blossoms’ petals light our feet with a special glint that we can’t find anywhere else. We are now invited toward dizzy tranquility, toward its fearful bank, by an invisible big hand silently placed around our back. TIME What was a year anyway? A flood didn’t do much damage this year, did it? A winter sun is shining on the chicken coop in which five chickens have drowned. What was the ten years anyway? Our daughter is struggling with adverbs in the subjunctive mood in her grammar. Our son is still watching the bloody Abdullah the Butcher wrestling on television. What was the twenty years anyway? If I open the partition wall, my wife is still washing the underwear. What was the thirty years anyway? Invited, I rushed to the widower’s rented house, where my childhood friend is taking out his reading glasses. What was the forty years anyway? My father is now like an old game-cock, while my mother is still sewing the afterglow into the ground. Well, the Earth will take a nap. Eternity too may be as quick as a wink, and I’ll stay up like a night watchman. Translated from the Japanese by Naoshi Koriyama Kosaburo Nagatsu (1934 - )Kosaburo Nagatsu (1934 - ) was born in Hiroshima, but he was in Yamaguchi Prefecture at the time of the A-bombing. After graduating from high school in Hiroshima, he started to work for a bank and started to write poetry. He has written many poems about Hiroshima. DID YOU SEE HIROSHIMA? Did you see Hiroshima? Have you been to Hiroshima? I beseech you to visit Hiroshima. The jumbles of barracks in front of the station have been developed and department stores have been built. The fields leading to the army’s drill ground have become the station buildings for the bullet trains. Things change in half a century. We don’t see any scars of war anywhere now. But people live quietly hiding their scars. Few are the A-bomb survivors who can talk about their experiences now and they keep silent, holding their sorrow for having survived. Soon the temporary barracks have been replaced with modern residential buildings. Streets are widened and newly built, a bit different from what we remember. New bridges have been built and vehicles are going over them. Now Hiroshima is a major city for the new century with a population of 1,200,000. On that day, high schoolgirls gathered to the first aid station around Nigitsu Shrine but now bullet trains dash by on the elevated railways through the station and a row of buildings. Am I foolish to try to remember the old Hiroshima? Or is it too natural that the image of old Hiroshima should fade away? Are these cries of the shadows in our hearts going to fade away? Please inhale the air of Hiroshima now! Did you see Hiroshima? Please come, visit Hiroshima now. Please inscribe the image of Hiroshima on your hearts. HAS HIROSHIMA CHANGED? Has Hiroshima changed? It has changed. Since that time survivors of the A-bomb have stopped talking about the A-bomb. Has Hiroshima changed? It has changed. Young people are no longer interested in the A-bomb. They don’t want to know about it. The number of school excursions visiting Hiroshima has decreased every year, as I hear. People just shout for the Peace Movement, And survivors of the A-bomb who can talk about it are dying out. Memories of the poets too are fading, aren’t they? Their voices are getting thinner, aren’t they? Has Hiroshima changed? It has changed. The streets have become much more beautiful. It’s a major city now with many green spots. There is a ferry for sightseeing boats around the Atomic Bomb Dome and pleasure boats are moored. But prices seem to be a bit high. Has Hiroshima changed? It hasn’t changed. Things can’t change: the pains of the wounds of the ghosts; the remaining ruins in the hearts of those who have survived. Please, don’t forget Hiroshima. Please pass a piece of heavy thoughts on to others. Please don’t let the memories of Hiroshima fade away. THE SKY TORN APART BLACK I’m trudging wearily. On the other side Electric wires and utility poles are Smoldering. I’m trudging wearily. On the other side Now the i that is dead And the i that is faintly alive Are trudging wearily. Rags and Flesh and skin peeling off, hanging down with rags, Their faces swollen, Men and Women cannot be distinguished, they don’t care. They are faintly alive now, Just barely breathing. They are naked, But they don’t feel embarrassed. Where is their dignity Of being human beings? Views are simply flat. Broken concrete walls are barely visible. The beings that were human being a while ago are Now a mass of corpses. Only occasionally someone is found alive, breathing. Crowds Of skeletons of human beings are trudging Wearily . . . Just trudging wearily . . . Only god knows whether they are just walking. Translated from the Japanese by Naoshi Koriyama Jotaro Wakamatsu (1935 - )Jotaro Wakamatsu (1935 - ) was born in Oshu City, Iwate Prefecture. He lives in Minami-Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture. He visited Chernobyl in 1994, that is eight years after the nuclear accident in Chernobyl. Has written many poems about the tsunami of 2011 and the ensuing nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s No. 1 plant, in Fukushima. THR CHERRY TREE IN HANSAKI In an ordinary year it would have delighted many people’s eyes. But the blossoms of this 300-year old pink weeping cherry fell with no viewers admiring them this year. In the middle of the small grave yard on the hill the tree embraces the grave yard with its branches spreading. Shone on by the setting sun, the blossoms show a mysterious hue. The pink weeping cherry tree blooms for the dead. One can see the sea from the hill in the distance. From the seaside which the tsunami has attacked one may see the pink weeping cherry tree’s mysterious blossoms. It blooms only to comfort the dead. It blooms on the hill with no viewers around, because no one is allowed to come due to the nuclear disaster. PROOF OF BEING A HUMAN Man has learned to raise crops. Man has learned to keep animals. Both raising crops and keeping animals are the proof that man is man. If man hasn’t been able to raise crops, when he has farm land, and if he hasn’t been able to keep animals, when he has animals, and if he hasn’t been able to catch fish, when there are fish in the sea, since that certain time, man can’t be called man, can he? THE AGE THAT I LIVED IN When I was a child, I thought, “I’d like to live till I’m sixty-six. If I lived till I’m sixty-six, I could see the 21st century.” The 21st century in my imagination was an age of Utopia, when there will be no war; when everyone will have a rich life. But the age I lived in was an age of indiscrimination, huge massacres, an age which was haunted by Death, beginning with the air raids of Guernica. Am I a god of Death by any chance? If I die, will an age like this come to an end? I’ll die before long, but I’d like to see if we can dispose of the foolish thing called “nuclear energy” which our foolishness has invented. Translated from the Japanese by Naoshi Koriyama Find us on Facebook 
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