Poem

Shuntaro Tanikawa

Side by side

A day

Crows cry
ahh,
ahh

At the news of a death
in the morning
I feel relieved

A friend is
discreetly
pregnant

I throw away
crumbled
pressed-sugar candies, and

I wonder about
Myself
this afternoon

© Translation: 2011, Takako U. Lento
From: The Art of Being Alone: Poems 1952-2009
Publisher: Cornell University, Ithica, New York, 2011

ひと日

ああ
ああと
烏が喚き

朝の
訃報に
安堵する

友人の
ひそやかな
妊娠

朽ちた
干菓子を
捨てて

己を
あやしむ
午後

Shuntaro Tanikawa

(Japan, 1931)

Shuntaro Tanikawa has been a phenomenon in Japan since the publication of his first collection, Alone in Two Billion Light Years, in 1952. In the book’s prefatory poem, Tanikawa’s mentor, Tatsuji Miyoshi, introduced him as a young man who “has come from a distant land, unexpected [ . . . ] bearing the weight of being alone”. Indeed, he seemed to be totally unencumbered by Japan’s post-World War...

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Poems of Shuntaro Tanikawa

A day

Crows cry
ahh,
ahh

At the news of a death
in the morning
I feel relieved

A friend is
discreetly
pregnant

I throw away
crumbled
pressed-sugar candies, and

I wonder about
Myself
this afternoon

© 2011, Takako U. Lento
From: The Art of Being Alone: Poems 1952-2009
Publisher: 2011, Cornell University, Ithica, New York

A day

Crows cry
ahh,
ahh

At the news of a death
in the morning
I feel relieved

A friend is
discreetly
pregnant

I throw away
crumbled
pressed-sugar candies, and

I wonder about
Myself
this afternoon

© 2011, Takako U. Lento
From: The Art of Being Alone: Poems 1952-2009
Publisher: 2011, Cornell University, Ithica, New York