Pathway to Japanese Literature

That I harbored resentment toward novelists was undeniable; some might have found this inexplicable—after all, to put it bluntly, “all novelists were such good people.” Yet I could not help but adopt this resentful form of satirical poetry as my own, for it was an indispensable method of my livelihood.
It had arisen from a societal desire that demanded poetry be forged into an offensive weapon.
And this resentment toward prose originated from the clash between my conception of time as a poet and that of novelists; these poems had been published in the Yomiuri Shimbun from 1936 to 1937 and in the satirical magazine Taiko, with unpublished works added to make dozens of pieces from which I made this selection—I myself did not consider commemorating their compilation to be without value.

To Shiga Naoya

Master Shiga
He schemed aplenty,
Works remained few indeed.
Wanting neither leisure nor time,
After pondering at length,
Abruptly
He deigned to drop a clever line.
For Master
This simply wouldn't do!
Folks like us
You blithering fool!
Left gaping in anticipation
For the impatient patron—
The lukewarm portions
Were store policy to serve, mind you—
Out in the streets,
Couldn't you feel even faintest urgency?

Even the occasional inferior piece

My, my,

What Master serves up to eat—

In mole cricket vinegared dressing,

Motsu Rice

ヘヱ、

Apologies for the extended wait,

To the Honorable Shiga Naoya

Satirical poem,
One order,
Order up.

To Satō Haruo

A man there is,
Every day, every day
He dines on beef

At times he dined alone,

Dines on saury and broods
We, the poor,
It is not that he sometimes dines on saury.
Every day, every day, he devours saury
Every day, every day, he eats croquettes.

Haruo,

You welcome tomorrow's sun,

fly into rages,

At evening welcome the moon

and quell those tempers.

Old justice

and conscience's solitary hell -

You stand like an amaryllis,

A single noble bloom

of the new era.

The new justice and conscience
do not know loneliness like yours.
Haruo,
of the new century’s
saury—is it sweet or sour?
Declare your verdict.

To Shimazaki Tōson

For a boastful junior like myself to humbly offer such foolish thoughts here—

For Sensei—from before dawn,
Alone in the study he rose,
Raked up the embers in the hibachi,
Puffed out his cheeks and blew.
Without taste, without aspiration,

But Sensei’s seclusion

He was great as a recorder of history.
Sensei was a realist who lashed at bygone time—
a realist who lashed—
he was not a prophet who forged new eras.
For a boastful junior like myself to present such foolish thoughts here—
As for Sensei, he would escort visitors
out to the entrance,
plop down and place three fingers [in formal deference],
his disconcertingly formal manner
terribly discomfiting the readers.
This was a form of “courteous literature.”

To Murō Saisei

In reality,
To this extent,
Finding fault,
To this extent,

To this extent he found fault—
To this extent—
Persistently clinging—
To this extent producing works one after another—
Coaxing them into submission took real skill—
You—
Are you truly a god or a woman?
If a god—
A ravaged and weary god—

If you were a woman,

In the dark night, with a candle lit upon your head,
a witch hammered nails.
But the straw doll did not scream.
There was no one to curse.
Whenever he suffered with novels,
time and again,
he built gardens only to destroy them,
time and again,
he bought stones only to
sell them off,
digging up retirement gardens again.
The one who took pleasure in this—
It was precisely as you willed.
Because it was your garden.

To Masamune Hakuchō

Say 'right' and—
say 'left'—
Say 'mountain' and—
say 'river'—
Say 'Let's go' and—
say 'Return'—
The venerable elder is a contrarian.
To live life like this—
To have twisted oneself to such an extent—
You must have undergone considerable training,
The years have made your heart cold-sensitive—
Have you developed cold sensitivity?

It was pitiful.
From your sanity,
no truth could be heard.
Ahem,

Master,

I want to get you drunk and hear—
There are times I do just that, you know.

To Hayashi Fumiko

To your renowned personality,

Please permit me to touch upon it.
I too possess some measure of personality,
And stake that scant personality
Since I sing of you,
Your artistic drunkard’s
Character finds fuller display in publication gala antics—
It blossoms completely in those entertainments.
As guest of honor wielding Western plates,

You pranced about scooping loaches

That’s all well and good.

Pleasing the guests—

But if you went so far as to dance—

You flipped up your skirts with a flourish—

The undergarment—
Having deliberately worn it beforehand for the entertainment—
How pitiful if you'd premeditated even that.
Ah, such meticulous care to feign hardship—
The truth reeks of revue-girl coquetry—
"You've over-rehearsed your struggles."

Planned and schemed in advance—
O sentimental hack!
But I will not tell you again to live in a nine-by-two ken tenement.
Please sever your servility to life.
You must not amuse the readers who are already amused.
In all the world, only one person—
I alone expect you who are unamusing.
I am waiting for the disgruntled, rebellious you.

To Yokomitsu Riichi

Riichi Tengu,
leading Crow Tengu and lesser tengus,
into the forest of pure art still dark at noon—
with shouts of “Hup! Yah! Hah!”,
leaped from branch to branch in ascetic training,

In the dark night, amid the owl’s cries,
Loneliness seeped into flesh—
Yearning for human company,
This affair arising from the Tengu’s remote mountain fastness...

The moment he descended to the village of popular fiction—

Succumbing to the mundane world,
He became utter foolishness.
Would he return to the mountains for ascetic training,
Or ride the clouds and fly overseas?
Making soy sauce from sardines—
In novels it would be easy,
But for popular-and-artistic novels
To obtain patents on new inventions—
That must prove devilishly hard, I tell you.

To Tanizaki Jun'ichirō

Life’s
crossword—
life’s
labyrinth narrated endlessly.

The works of Great Tanizaki—

fluttering moth
A toad that swallowed lead

Heavy,
Heavy,

To read while lying down—
Too precious for that—
For browsing in bookstores,
Too long—
For readers—
Gropingly read
A blindman’s tale.
In the author’s shoulder stiffness,
Readers keeping such august company—
It might be good—

Than book expenses—

Massage fees seem likely to cost more.

The Master’s esteemed works—
That’s why—

Honestly—

It’s exhausting.

To Arui Kaku

The beer barrel old man—
He likes coffee.
He likes jazz.
Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja,
Jaarnalism is your dear delight.
I—your
Seemingly earnest—
You adore the pinnacle of unseriousness.
Bean, bean, bean, bean,

Always hale and hearty with your beans,

You hard worker,

The old man—

Nihilism and

Anarchism and

Mixed beans, beans, beans,

Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja,

From Jaarnalism,

It’s a three-dog sled coming to pick you up,

Step right up.

With feigned charm,

The ja-ja horse—

Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, ja—

carrying you

On and on.

To Tokunaga Sunao

You whom society had never once—
a peculiar appellation that had never once—

"You want me to bestow upon you an appellation—
'Oh Mr. Tokunaga Sunao, Writer of the Intelligentsia'—
You've already forgotten where to place the cases from your printer days—
It's around that time you've forgotten,"

Yet everyone crowded around,
hoisting you aloft as a worker-writer—
That undoubtedly ran counter to your will.
And they made you cling ever more tightly
to Gorky.
"Don’t just learn from Gorky—
once in a while, learn from other sources too."
This in the sense that Gorky too was part of reality.

“Learn from the vast reality,”

“Though—”

“If Gorky had a tail,”

“it’d be easier to grab onto—”

“A shame he lacks one.”

To Hayashi Fusao

What a man this was,

Through and through,

A man who committed the crime of disturbance—or,

Ideologically and socially,

O skillful tambourine player, you had mastered your craft.

When he struck the drum's center,

The jingle crew around him

Clattered away,

He spewed abuse among us yet remained beloved.

Fukutokuka was yours alone.

By the way, none knew he was a master of physiology—

None knew he was a master of physiology—

At the publishing gala, he had berated every last attendee.

At the exit afterward, the shoulder of one he had berated—

“Hey, hey,” he said.
He struck with a large flat hand,

The coachman enraged the horse’s nape, said “Cluck-cluck” and patted it, whereupon the horse narrowed its eyes and grew docile. To strike near the central nervous system with a flat hand was an excellent method for soul-pacifying compliance. Defeated by Hayashi and having their shoulders patted by him—how many opponents had their fury thus quelled?

Hayashi, since you treated your opponents like horses,

This time, scold and scratch that guy’s

Scratch under their ears for them.

Then this time, they would growl rumblingly in their throats.

To Takeda Rintarō

Oh, my friend,
O very model of lofty spirit,
Under his haori—the emon-zue rod
was probably carried on his back.
Squaring his shoulders,
"How could sparrows ever comprehend the roc’s ambition?"
"They wouldn’t know, would they?"
he muttered as he walked through Ginza.
Was he indeed

Is he a sparrow?
Is he a roc?
Only God would know that.
O material of your weeping novel—
You loathe politics with your entire being,
Yet only those tinted eyes outshine all others in beauty.

To Akita Ujaku

Amidst the violent entanglement of lightning flashes

of Japan’s liberation movement—

Amid the commotion,

Even a cat’s help would be welcome.

In the frenzy—

First it was lecture events—
Then symposiums—and
First Akita,
Second Akita,

100 percent,
The benevolent old man had been used,
Glossy white hair
Seating him in the place of honor
Because it added dignity and gravitas to gatherings,
From all directions,
Requests for his presence came pouring in.
Packed lunch, train fare paid out of pocket—

The old man went out grinning broadly.

Eventually, the thunder subsided.
When it had retreated far into the shadow of the mountains,
all utility had completely vanished.
The juniors—the old man

like a totem pole of class
they idolized
Journalism—
not yet old enough to write a chronology,
not yet having reached advanced age—
having him chronicle fifty years of his past
to the memorialist
had been disposed of,
frosty morning

Suddenly noticing he had lost the precious orb called "creative urge" within his chest—
the precious orb—
he realized he had lost it.
Japan’s Lunacharsky
was now suffering,
seeking the lost orb.

To Kubokawa Tsurujiro

“Your fastidiousness is splendid.”

“But you must stop habitually using stimulants.”

“With mamushi liquor, you can’t defeat ○○○○.”

“The style of your critical essays is exceptional.”

“Let me demonstrate with some model examples.”

“‘In other words, when the dog’s mouth bites its tail—’”

“‘—the fact that it bit means’”

“‘the tail was bitten by the dog’s mouth.’”

“‘That’s what it means.’”

“In this case, the dog just spins in circles—”

“—needlessly confusing your readers.”

“Drape a polished cloth over your study desk.”

“Control your breathing.”

“Then show me a completed work.”

“Since you refuse to show it,”

"Well now, you’ve installed—
the 'ozone generator'—
I wonder if it's broken?"

To Hasegawa Nyozekan
Hand pressed to chest
Vaguely, somehow—
"You who cherish 'freedom,' O gentleman"
Hamlet of our age

O eternal bachelor,
If I were a woman,
To your abode
I would march as an uninvited wife.
Every last pampered hound I'd drive out.

"I beat the tatami mats."
"You fool!"
"Mr. Nyozekan."
"Having written logical arguments for so long,"
"The smokescreen of theory—"
"'That' and 'this' ad nauseam—"
"Does your conscience rest easy?"

My, my, the neighborhood mistresses
Let’s put it to the test.
“Count up your ‘that’s and ‘this’s.”

“Look here.”

This here is the mountain goddess.

O dear wife

Now, now, don’t get angry.

What we call theory,

When it gets stuck,

Well, um, you see, like that,

Like this, in itself,

However, well... you see—
But that, in itself—
That’s just how it is.

To Nakano Shigeharu

Do not just fret over the disarray of your hem—

Write a magnanimous novel,

*The Novelist Who Can’t Write Novels*

*A Small Single Record*

Do not affix such oddly timid titles as

Go ahead and boldly title it *Fūun* like someone else,
You too, messing about with poetry,
You’re a repeat offender who fled to novels,
At least bring some poetic offerings

Spread them within prose—
Without stiffening like dried cod,
Without hardening like fertilizer sardines,
At least indulge in some ideological abandon—
Angina cuts your life short.
Like exact change clinking back,
Don’t flaunt your cleverness—
Fool or sage?
This muddled indecision—
Write your works.

To Mushanokōji Saneatsu

Gold and silver swords you had forged,

Lord Mushanokōji Saneatsu,

Here stands a lowly poet

wiped away tears and humbly offered admonition,
"You drove people into ‘Hyūga Village’
and tormented them with loneliness and desolation—"

Ah,

It was unbearable, unbearable—

Beyond the mountains lay the lights of pleasure,

The villagers of the new village

They must have been lamenting.

This youthful error of yours,

You had been possessed by Tolstoy,
The rest was mere social pretense and obstinacy—
Tenuously sustaining the village's ideals
(though not truly sustaining them),
You should hold its dissolution ceremony already.

Satirical Verses on the Literary Establishment

Ah, lament my fate of embellishing unremarkable human names with poetry.

God bestowed this task upon me.

Humans are made of the water and soil of the land where they were born.

Ibuse Masuji was composed of sentimentality and complaints.

Fukada Hisaya lived a life attuned to the cadence of declamation.

And he was quite the essayist.

"I dislike your novels,

I like your eyes, Enchi Fumiko.

But I shall refrain from falling in love—

Because you supposedly love in such a prosaic way."

Amidst the sprawling length of minute writings,

Kobayashi Hideo, you with only your eyes ablaze,

Be cursed, drop dead—you melodrama addict, looking like you missed hell's final train.

When the young jackknife bleeds,

Chikamatsu Shūkō slices through past pages with a paper knife.

Well? Can you see life one meter ahead?

Your eyeballs spin Copernican revolutions—Japan's homemade Unamuno, contrarian for contrarianism's sake—Hagiwara Sakutarō.

Ominous philosophy birthed a black bird that laughs often.

That cackling crow is you, Miyoshi Jūrō,

Write healthier and more hygienic comedies.

Chang Hyŏk-chu went hiking in Korea

and began scaling literature’s peak in Tokyo.

Beware the slippery style that glides without resistance.

A minor truth from the grand conch of lies—

Shiga Naoya, the Shugendō ascetic worshipped merely for sounding his conch.

Having once been struck by literature's waterfall,
he found delight in chattering about experiences,
impressing people like some monarch of essays.
Uchida Hyakken, your writing—
the magic that captivates people.

No one notices that you're a rhymester.
Yasuda Yojūrō is a frolicking foal, a cute philosopher,
For you, a philosophy conveniently sized for toying.

The crow atop Hōryūji Temple’s roof—
It shat more contemplatively than you.

Oh my beloved Record Keeper Hayashi Fusao,
The only literary figure concerned with the government.
A friend of memory who forgot to change the needle from time to time yet repeated old songs—it never allowed forgetting.
Murayama Tomoyoshi was an energetic Thousand-Armed Kannon,
A novel in his right hand and a play in his left.
Furthermore you kissed movies.

Bear the responsibility of the kiss.
Tasting the desolation after the roar,

Under regionalism's banner stood Hirata Koroku—
He detested all things international.
An aeroplane landing wherever it pleases—
Aono Suekichi launched like a catapult;
Journalism his trusty aircraft carrier.

"Writers! This satirical poet you call me—
Do not suffer me to dwell within your literary establishment."

It was akin to bedding down while clutching an avenging demon—
Those who made silent dismissal their sole weapon
Found themselves doted upon by me again.
To buttocks plastered with salves, I administered a thick injection;
From faction leaders’ heads came boiling water and gasoline bottles set ablaze.
Even to those women, I remained—
A scheme stretching thousands of miles beneath their noses—
They couldn’t muster genuine rage.
Unfortunate woman—oh Kami Chikako—

No matter how many times I rubbed my eyes and looked, you remained gentle.

Yamamoto Yūzō, gatekeeper of liberalism.

I merely passed by your conscience with a perfunctory nod.

When sick heroism compelled them to write literature,

The anxiety of Earth’s destruction seized Moriyama Kei.

You should have consulted your thermometer more

They needed to write.

Sleeping alone in a double bed.

The Virgin, Hasegawa Nyozekan.

He occupied two pillows all by himself.
He freely used whichever pillow he pleased - right or left.

To devise the most elaborate phrases possible,

Kitagawa Fuyuhiko strained himself,
spewing epigrams as unbearable as armpit stench.
I waited forever for you to create fixed-form poetry.
Rather than possessing the talent to write novels, they kept young parched retainers.
Let us praise Takeda Rintarō’s so-called skill.
He licked realism’s crawling kittens.
Hayashi Fumiko hacked out writings on women’s feeble fluttering.

God, I beseech You to forbid her from adopting a tone as though she knows every man in the world.

An ever-present rumble like distant thunder—

They debase their works as if suddenly remembering.

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō loomed as large as a shrine hall devoid of its deity.

Still in the futon: Uno Kōji.

He sported an imposing countenance
yet refused to show his face beyond his sideburns' length.
Ōya Sōichi spat third-rate venom - a mere sack of tears -
proving ultimately just a sentimentalist
who fumed with indignation rather than turning maudlin.
"Train harder to become a proper villain!"

Kitahara Hakushū's poetic spirit waned as he churned out police ditties,
entrenched in the verse-making clique, buttressing its rearguard -
that poetic cabal assembled with laughable ease.

The customary champagne for repatriates' welcomes
had its corks popped in haste.

"Satō Toshiko - you reared it in America -
may your ideology flourish!"

May your ideology prosper.

Maruyama Kaoru’s slovenly poetic drool—

He finally caught it on a plate of prose.

Politician Inukai Ken had one leg.

He was clattering with a literary prosthetic leg.

Takami Jun was like an incident-monger.

He scrounged up problems from life.

His novels could barely manage to placate the readers.

Theorist Kubokawa Tsurujirō laid hands on her,

He was bitten on the hand—by her, the one called Novel.

To such an extent did Kubokawa Ineko’s jealousy compel [one] to write novels—

She was shrewd and a novelist.

Removing her black collar and donning an appa-pa coat, she was well aware of the zeitgeist. The illustrious Dazai Osamu misused his knack for writing novels in numbed paralysis. Ōmori Yoshitarō—what an indeed splendidly long name—softly melted ideology like a throat lozenge, gently dissolving it for them. “Shimaki Kensaku! You who hold the mantle of leprosy novels—duel those who stole it! For those snatching your crown one after another: fire a twelve-round volley! But don’t forget to save that last bullet for yourself.”

Masamune Hakuchō seemed to have exhausted even the pleasure of speaking in irony.

Formerly Sui Kazuichi, now renamed Kaga Kōji.

Poor name divination had caused his works to decline.

Hashimoto Eikichi, a craftsman who contorts literary styles.

There is no method to write a novel more beautiful than reality.
They attempted to catch a glimpse of the fighters through Nakajō Yuriko.
There were no shortage of bad apples.
You, thoroughly entangled in sentimental human affairs, were beautiful.
Tateno Nobuyuki was unaware that he awaited fate.
After probing his surroundings with an unsteady cane,
A schemer adept at edging their way into view.
A person who spent much time in stunned bewilderment.
Tokunaga Nao was muddling up praisers and admonishers.

At this point, you should split your roster into two,
For your future and your health.
What a foolishly polite existence.
Shimazaki Tōson’s deep bows and humility too—
When taken to excess, became cunning.
Yokomitsu Riichi had more than enough with the clattering wave sounds of stage props,
Having sailed to France solely to savor seasickness to its fullest.
He knew not his place, neither as literary man nor traveler.
Ishikawa Tatsuzō, who donned striped trousers far too early,
Gasped for breath in literature’s social arena.
As long as the literary world’s camaraderie endures, Kume Masao shall endure.

Kamei Katsuchirō had become an armchair architect packed with a spirit of unease.

Kishida Kunio wrote satirical novels to court regret.

Nakano Shigeharu lived with reckless abandon—

Not through offhand whims, but by meticulously dredging from the depths of your being:

"Do show us a grand work you’ve supposedly excavated from your very soul."

Your scratching nails drew blood,

Yet left the scratched one with nothing but an itch.

Itagaki Naoko—a person more irritating than adorable.

Ozaki Shirō—his works, for better or worse—

He had known how to handle novels until then, but now stood clueless about what came next.

By engaging in criticism to pose as intellectuals—
By pounding away at consumer cooperatives' foundations—
Through such assistance they become class-conscious individuals.

Arai Kaku resembled a hippopotamus in his demeanor,
he shrank bashfully from life.
Niwa Fumio lacked even the power to forge new morals.
A moth that could not crawl free from the vulgar mire,
its head was light and its hindquarters heavy—that must have been the case.

Nakagawa Toichi was always upon the waves,

Targeting the fan's pivotal rivet.

When waves stood still and fans froze stiff,

The strike would ring truer then.

That poverty in fiction's artful lies—the rawness of their fancy—

In Murō Saisei's mind,

The yeast cultures dwindled dry.

Tanigawa Tetsuzō nursed a humility orbiting literature's periphery.

Should literature start circling round your sphere,

Readers were in deeper trouble.

Yada Tsuyoko became a candidate for the Akutagawa Prize.

This time I'd make her a candidate for the Koguma Prize.

Funabashi Seiichi was “flying and jumping around.”

Toyota Saburo was a “self-righting doll.”

Together under the banner of activism—

National Socialism; kinship-based fraternalism.

Kawakami Tetsutarō was—distilled water.

Miki Kiyoshi was—industrial alcohol.

The former provided no nourishment.

The latter stung the nostrils.

Even if Okamoto Kanoko preached the path of Buddha,

You reeked of nothing but womanliness.

Fujiwara Sadamu was restless.

He possessed a philosophy of looking back like a fox.

Fukao Sumako—

Slept clutching photos of Colette and Mistinguett.

When passion faded, the rouge grew thick.

She, like Calco’s poetry,

"There’s no end to self-preservation," indeed.

Cheer up,
And let's commit double suicide with me.
Kawabata Yasunari's egoism barely
compelled him to write novels,
brandishing his self-satisfied understanding
as he chased after dancers and readers.
Hirotsu Kazuo seemed to have forgotten how to charge at life,
but never forgot how to assail the literary establishment.
He would often wield -
wield that polemical halberd.

Shrewd operator, Yoshiya Nobuko.
Unladylike raking in of hefty manuscript fees.
At most, pour into the kappa’s head dish—the golden water—.
Have it poured.
The golden water—.
Okada Saburo was cursed with too handsome a face.
Life is not something as perfectly proportioned as your facial features.
Go wild beyond all measure, you paragon of virtue!
Tokuda Kazuho is old man Shusei’s son.
Both in his works and ideology,
unfortunately, he’s too dutiful a son.

If you are not a child of rebellion, you are not my friend.

In crafting clever remarks and—

Foremost in feigning comprehension of the incomprehensible—

The literary tick Serizawa Kojiro.

Nakahara Chūya—more than his writings,

His name rings far more poetic.

He grazes life as one gingerly rubs their backside.

Deign to sing your fill in the tepid bath.

For him, poetry was a tool to propagate discomfort.

Hojo Tamio,

It wasn't that life contained death because illness existed -

With your flawless skin,

Had you no urge to write about lepers with rotting souls?

Now I have erected a tombstone

With a list of names—
The sky of Japan, veiled by prose,
Covered in ill-natured rashes,
Dirty as a dog’s skin

In the kindness of scratching your skins,
The way for you all to accept this as kindness—
Silently, without complaint,
Is to be spoken ill of by me, the satirical poet.

To the Literary Dignitaries: A New Year's Greeting Poem

―Auspicious New Year: January 1st―

On Nakagawa Toichi

Your opinions were all correct—

Had there been no one to oppose you,

that assertion about life being entirely chance

would’ve seen your tenacity

finally strong-arm publishers into releasing 『Chance and Literature』—

you succeeded in pocketing those royalties—

Now whether the public buys your book by accident

or nobody buys it out of inevitability—

You’ll gauge your arguments’ worth

by the jingle in your wallet—

If we were to consider the poverty of the masses accidental—
That I spoke ill of you was also chance.
Everything proved accidental; you had to forgive it all—
That you ended up with your poetess wife
Was likely some accident too,
So even when quarreling,
Seeing how you never divorced—
Was marital love but a chain of chances?
By chance burning rice,
By chance conceiving a child—
When in 1935 you emerged as chance's theorist,
That very emergence stood all too—

A coincidence that proved history right, isn’t it?

On Komatsu Kiyoshi

The free spirit of the intelligentsia

"In any case," he asserted, "it all lies in 'Action'."

The one-trick pony of cleverness,

Time and again repeated, reaching the present,

Your activism,

Beating your own drum,

Somersaulting

O auspicious Lion of Echigo!

Sweet refrains alone,

I begged you—
Please keep life tranquil—
Your liberalism,
Our liberalism—
Had there been no bones, we'd have merged into one body and soul
With such devotion we yearned to become kin
We had pondered this
But simply put—our
Bones differed in hardness
What a pity we couldn't unite.

On Kamei Katsuchirō

Potassium cyanide could no longer be bought.

To your Romantic school,

There were no shops selling mustard.

If they had ten sen,

They entered Kōhai-ten,

Drank some lukewarm coffee,

Debated with their comrades, you know.

Or perhaps drank Plen soda,

Couldn't quite savor the faint fizz.

As for causing internal strife among comrades,

Now was the perfect tide.

If they dawdled,

They'd be laughed at by clams.

On Hayashi Fusao

At long last, the moment has come for you—
The time has come to change direction.
Do you know this?
Will you take up the heavy burden,
Or will you take up the light burden?
You must not exhibit selflessness—
Seize the satirical nature of the heavy burden.
In your lyricism—
You’ve grown weary of socializing with everyone.
Your hirsute shins, venomous tongue, and true nature—
You should parade them—

Just as you say,
With the cold-bloodedness of a toad,
You cannot write satire.
It seems that you and I
Our constitutions seem compatible—
My lukewarm blood transfusion—
Shall I offer it to you?
Or perhaps as a proper wife—
Will that suffice, I wonder?

On Hirabayashi Taiko

Your misandry—

The women who support you—

Your stockpiled 'strength'

Unable to surmount,

Nothing but cowards,

The men who back you

They're all such bold and splendid specimens.

I too naturally beg to join their ranks.

Hayashi does likewise, Hirotsu too,

Uno Kōji in his table speeches,

He waved his hand,
he did not declare approval or disapproval,
but the length of his sideburns, the length of his face
attested to his feminist leanings—
to support you

For men, it certainly takes courage—
You show signs of striking men with the rigidity of your works.

Because you give off an air of striking men.

On Aono Suekichi

What deserved respect was Aono's stutter.

People, with their abundance of words,

They did not speak the truth.

Aono, with few words,

He shed tears,

Only, for him, to speak the truth—

The dictionary's characters
Being too numerous,
They were a source of trouble.

For him, even on manuscript paper—
Who would demand he become a stutterer—
Could one demand such a thing?
At least let him write prose.

We ought to learn this sole freedom from him—
He partially peddles 'Junjō' (Pure-Heartedness),
On the whole peddling characters—
We should turn a blind eye to him making a living,

As the saying goes—the lamentable thing about heroes
Is that they're all too heroic.

On Moriyama Kei

Writers who are grateful for having their works criticized by you—I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Critic Moriyama never grappled head-on with works.
He never once engaged directly.
He first offered pro forma praise—
“I place my hopes in tomorrow,” in that perfunctory manner—
and had an established reputation for such criticism.
You—during your Writers’ Alliance days—
shut the front door
yet kept sneaking through the back.
Haven’t you cured that habit yet?
Here now—clueless about reality—
you unfilial wretch!

The Superficiality of Thought in Critical Discourse

The Classical Sentimentality Within Poetry

The Few Who Support It

There may also be protectors.

But many do not love your theories—

They do not love them.

They sympathized with your frailty—
Awake to both criticism and flesh!
Shun all sympathy!
You feared isolation;
If it were you who must sing
of night’s eternal realm—
then surely among owls you dwelled!

On Yokomitsu Riichi

He collided with the wall of pure art.
Attaching some reason or another,
Stomping in roppō theatrics,
He slid down the hanamichi stage into popular fiction.
This dwelling place was probably none too good either,
This time, [he] set his sights on Japan—
Would he strap on his long traveling sandals,

What remained unconvincing was
the theory of Yokomitsu Riichi’s foreign travels.
If he meant to procure modernism—
while he grasped the matter well enough—
if he aimed to become a fascist—

Even without spending a fortune on travel expenses—
He’d hardly want for material right here in Japan.
What’s the point of this overseas trip?

Well, does literature even exist in Japan once you abandon your homeland?
Grapple with this question.

On Kubokawa Ineko

You—

Is literature a woman’s lifelong vocation?

You’d never deign to doubt ‘no’—

But this wife business—

Is that a woman’s lifelong vocation or not?

Ah, but you must wrestle with doubts—

Precisely.

A truly burdensome duty—

Taking a husband—

"That is your misfortune—
Let us offer sympathy—
The variety of men rivals clam-shell patterns in diversity—
Countless variations exist—
But make them spew their mud—
They all taste identical—
You’ve yet to make Tsurujirō—
Truly purge his filth."

On Kikuchi Kan

Having abandoned literature,

He made a foolish face and opened his mouth.

He glared at the horse’s muzzle.

He joined as one of the horse racing fans.

He had shown wisdom in joining them.

Your Excellency’s literary philosophy, life philosophy,

All matters pertaining to truth—
To view them as speculative ventures was true foresight,

And splendidly did *Bungei Shunju* hit its mark—
he was the most opportunistic.
The fact that he had never once succeeded in horse racing—
what manner of life’s contradiction was this?

Your fate
did not begin changing when you took up literature—
it was when you plunged into horse racing that the shift started.

On Niimi Itaru

As a liberal, you—

The anarchistic elements of your arguments—

Would make splendid reading if those sections were removed.

Yet always in your writings,

You insist on adding chapters attacking Marxists—

This consistent creed of yours,

This cunning 'status quo maintenance' in livelihood—

How fortunate if this weren't your method!

From that position of yours,

The courage to satirize would surge forth,

Wrenching era's steering wheel backward

Like some scheming captain.

he could fulfill the role.
Bravo.
Obese Mr. Niimi Itaru,

With your very being in ideological matters—
May you spend your entire life conflating
unprincipled conduct and freedom.
You—regarding the freedom sought by true paupers’
ideology—
either caress or claw—

He had never once chosen between the two.
He had never once shaken hands.

To Kubokawa Tsurujirō

“Mr. Kubokawa’s article about me in the previous issue was utterly frivolous—since I see no need to offer a serious response, I present this poem as a year-end gift.”

“I never made such a request—
That I would ask you to be born into this world.
Yet it’s fate, isn’t it?”

When I came into this world,
You were born too, you know,
The foot soldier of my literature and
Your literature's esteemed executive

That we're butting heads with reality like this—
If our theories differ,
We don't see eye to eye,

If our livelihoods differed,
If our ideologies clashed,
Because our mothers differed,
How could we differ so completely?

In the civilized world, I—
Writing poetry by candlelight was a tragedy, wasn't it?
"You collapse drunk beneath the chandelier,"
"You wrote poetry in vomit."
The notion that one couldn't survive without 150 yen a month—
Where on you should one press
"That's how you produce such a fine sound, isn't it?"
"O God, grant me a fixed monthly income of fifteen yen,"
"Don't play the spoiled child at your age."
Boasting before magazine reporters was all well and good,
But presenting those very boasts to the public—

How pitiable the masses must be,
writing literature like dishonored checks—
Your enlightenment of the masses left one speechless,
you gallivanted recklessly here and there.
Like a crossed check,
your works and theories twisted and contorted,

When they reached readers' hands—
in the end, not a single sen was deposited—or so they say—
O esteemed literary executive,
has journalism truly given you
this armchair?
That armchair upon you—
had you never settled into it, you'd be happy now, wouldn't you?

To Hirabayashi Taiko

A woman’s heart—
A banjo?
Castanets?
If the heart dances,
Your body trembles,
Your heart—
Your heart doesn’t budge an inch.

Itago the Female Warrior

Your misandry—
Pushing literature,
Shall we shake?
Your old memories—
Flower hairpin
The day of peach-splitting—
You must have had a first love,
This is no joke.

Your heart—
Pickled radish’s
It’s not a weight—
If only it would stretch a little,
I wish it would shrink a little,
Now is
Men write literature of “Scream”
Women [write] literature of “Sobs”
This is the age for writing literature,
In you, that—
There is absolutely none.
There is no beautiful feminine spasm.

To Takeda Rintarō

You who preach admonitions against lewdness to others -
Let me offer you literature's admonitions in return.
You play matchmaker for realism
through People’s Library magazine:
Gathering grooms
while hunting brides -
But this photographer’s realism
breeds resentment in picture marriages!

That poetic spirit you scorn -
Don’t judge by surface flaws!

"Splendid retouching!"
"Splendid Eya Brush!"

For these matchmaking portraits -
Make them beautiful at all costs!

If we were to end up together—
After all, we’d probably be the sort to cozy up to each other anyway—
Were I to satirize you,
I wouldn’t let it rest—

At the sixth floor of Kayabacho Hall—
You apparently declaimed this—so they say—
Even such a filthy neck—
If it was your desire, I would have been happy to offer it—
However, since I had no sincere intention of bringing it—

You come down to the mortal world from there.

To Ōmori Yoshitarō

Until your eyes burned

Living in poverty,

until smoke poured from your feet—

If you ran yourself ragged in life,

The people’s ideology too

Would spark at least a little—

Your materialism—

No matter how far you went,
Those laboratory concoctions,
The contents of flasks—
Even dogs sometimes—
Unless they gnawed on posts,
Their tooth enamel weakened.
Even materialism half-gnawed
Might have supplemented
Social criticism’s needs—
Apply treatment.
That ideological pyorrhea of yours—
Coddle it thoroughly.
Your vagrant disposition—
An ally, I’ll concede.

To Kamei Katsuchirō

Your philosophy—
Like pickles festering in never-changed fermenting bran—

May you rot eternally.

Your Japan Romantic School flag—

It must already be beyond laundering—

You may weave endless tales—this much I know—

Yet you make no effort to speak to Naosai,

Too busy with life.

No ally of the impatient masses,

Living off an inheritance,

An ally of carefree literary youth—

To be sure.

To Nakano Shigeharu

How rough your ideological panting has become lately,

Not the roughness of a wolf,
With the roughness of one nearing death,
You spewed unstable invective.
You were no venomous-tongued critic—
Become a satirist.
However, your past ideologies—
the grains of idealism and
the bones of ultra-leftism—
Once in a mortar,
After meticulously grinding
These sentimental elements—

Use them effectively in satire—

No matter how fierce the superficial debates appeared,

Your ideology—

It formed not a single focal point.

A broken prism—

As sunlight averted itself from shattered glass,

Your emotions and ideology—

You produced writings fragmented through splintered refractions.

I approved of your battling enemies, but—

Like raking garbage with a crude tool—

You pointlessly dragged filth into our camp—

Introducing chaos through contamination.

What manner of tactician were you?

Concerning Shimaki Kensaku

Even when he was peddling manuscripts out in shaba,

as if still imprisoned,

he suffered.

O fatalist,

People bought that conscience—

Journalism welcomed it,

Manuscripts sold well,

But when prison memories dried up,

When subject matter snapped,

Readers of your kind—

Cruel creatures—

They took no secret joy

In your graduation from fatalism.

Now you'll truly,

Out in shaba,

Enter a mental prison.

It’s your turn to enter a mental prison,

To Two Sentimentalists

――To Moriyama Kei and Nakano Shigeharu――

Sentimentalist Moriyama Kei,

The death of your brother—

Don’t go parading it through prose.

Even a stranger like me loved your brother
Far more than you, his own flesh and blood—

Yet I never wrote a single word.

“If I said that, you’d reel—
You’d likely faint dead away—”

Love means understanding, after all.

All your finer qualities—

Your brother took them with him
To the world beyond.

What remains is dross—
None but yourself.

O Sentimentalist Nakano Shigeharu,

Your ideology—

Could it be woven solely from fibers—

Where have you shed all fat and flesh?

Into the prison toilet.
Could it be that you’ve been discarding them as—

What had you been doing in the prison cell?
You might have rebelled against the guards,
But you likely never devised any strategies.
If you wish to remain a poet,
From your old sentimental ways
May new sensibilities transform you.
I—a mere stranger—more than you, her own kin—

I love your sister.

—If I were to say such things—
You’d be startled,
You’d likely faint—
Love is ultimately understanding.
All your good nutrients—
Your sister possesses them all—

The remaining dregs are none other than you yourself,