Unitarian Fellowship Of Tokyo NEWS 9/2015
Recent Meeting:
September 11
The speaker was our member,
Bonnie McClure, graduate student in Japanese literature now studying at Aoyama
Gakuin University. She introduced us to renga,
or linked verse, the dominant form of Japanese style (waka) poetry in the 13—16th centuries. Very much a group effort
where, at a social gathering of poets, contemporaneous short poetry was recited
and recorded in turn under strict rules of linkage covering changing themes and
vocabulary. One hundred stanzas in total were a common length. Individuality
and self-promotion were frowned upon. She quoted various aspects of the poetics
including a stress on the Buddhist understanding of “temporality” or mujō and quoted Shinkei (a famous 15c. practitioner along with his
student Sōgi) …”the poet must be practically nonexistent.” Here is a linkage of
verses (in this case all by one poet) translated by McClure.
舟渡すさとの河上雁鳴きて
Geese cry upriver
from the village
where they send over the boat
– Sōgi
うかるゝ雲にわたる旅人
The traveler crossing
over the floating clouds –
Sōgi
生まれこし世にもまよひもつれぬらん
It seems I have become
lost and tangled
in this world into which I
was born – Sōgi
No comments:
Post a Comment