Great Construction

Some Personal Views on Poetry (tanka)

     When you eat tempura, you should eat it by itself. Tanka nowadays have too many expressions piled in them, so they have no unity. Feeling is dulled. Flavor decreases. This abuse is most prevalent among the major poets. Another thing is that these poets are bedazzled by ideograms, what the poetic form looks like in print. It is poetry of movable type. Tanka are not meant to be recited, they are meant to be read silently. To strain an analogy, it’s like filling up a four-mat tatami room with many ceramic decorations. One ceramic piece should be limited to the one important spot of the room, and nothing anywhere else is the most admirable.
     Another thing is that poetry today has no rhythm, it does not flow. It is very straight and formal and is not mellow nor mature. It is a steep slope. It causes a heavy feeling of oppression. It is loquacious vulgarity. The magazine Araragi contains many poems such as these.
     All of this tanka is not the way poetry should be.

Zuikō, Volume 1, Number 6, November 1, 1931
translated by cynndd