I lived from 1867-1902.
I was from Japan, and am in the Asian category.
Shiki was born in Matsuyama on September 17, 1867 to Tsunenao, a low ranking samurai and Yae the daughter of Oharo Kanzan, a teacher at the feudal clan school. His real name was Tsunenori, but he was called Noboru as a child. Shiki, lost his father at the age of five and Kanzan took over his education and educated him in the Chinese Classics. He was very strict and conservative. Shiki was also influenced by his uncle , Kato Takusen, who later served as a diplomat and the mayor of Matsuyama.
Read full description by Peacelink-Old Poetry Team...
Shiki was inspired by the Freedom and People's Right Movement, and in 1883 he went to Tokyo to become a politician, but while studying at the Imperial University, his interest in politics and philosophy gave way to a growing fascination with literature. He began writing fiction, but he gradually concentrated on the study and composition of haiku.
When he was twenty-two, he began coughing up blood and adopted the pen name Shiki, the name of a bird that, according to legend, coughs blood as it sings. He decided to devote himself to literature, withdrew from the university, and began working for the newspaper Nippon.
Shiki called for the reform of haiku and tanka, very brief forms of traditional poetry of seventeen and thirty-one syllables, respectively. Haiku, in particular, focus on nature and or simple occurrences of daily life, but the condensation required by the form can result in great expansiveness and depth. The traditional forms, however, had grown trite and formulaic over the years. Shiki recommended composition based on Shasei, or sketch from life, and interjected this principle of describing life just as it is into his prose writing, as well as his haiku and tanka. Until two days before his death, Shiki continued writing articles, including a series under the title Byo-sho Rokusyaku (A Six feet Sickbed), in spite of intense suffering from the spinal caries that had afflicted him since 1895. He died on September 19,1902. During his brief life, Shiki attracted a number of followers, who were influenced by and carried on his sketch-from-life theory of literature. Through them, as well as in his own right, he left his mark on the history of modern Japanese literature.
Popular poetry
a hollyhock
shot up to meet
4 lines, 2 comments
The man
I used to meet in the mirror
5 lines, 11 comments
green in the field
was pounded into
3 lines, 2 comments
the tree cut,
dawn breaks early
3 lines, 8 comments
I do not know the day
my pain will end yet
5 lines, 9 comments
a dog howling
sound of footsteps
4 lines, 3 comments
Under the moonlight, cuckoo cried as if it coughed up blood.
The sad voice kept me waking up,
3 lines, 3 comments
A hundred labourers
digging earth:
4 lines, 2 comments
One canary escaped:
the spring day
4 lines, 2 comments
the gourd water
of the night before yesterday
3 lines
A light
newly lit –
3 lines, 2 comments
saw the country
and returned—now deep at night
5 lines, 5 comments
spring rain:
browsing under an umbrella
3 lines, 2 comments
curtains drawn,
the emperor's love
5 lines, 5 comments
a cock crows
at the foot of the small Mt. Fuji
4 lines, 1 comment
A willow;
and two or three cows
4 lines, 2 comments
a quart of phlegm-
even gourd water
6 lines, 3 comments
a fancy-free cat
is about to catch
4 lines, 2 comments
Now and again
it turns to hail;
4 lines
an evening breeze
white rose petals are
4 lines
all I can think of
is being sick in bed
4 lines
at the full moon's
rising, the silver-plumed
3 lines, 2 comments
A lightning flash:
between the forest trees
4 lines
in the coolness
gods and Buddhas
3 lines, 2 comments
In the coolness
of the empty sixth-month sky...
3 lines, 2 comments
scatter layer
by layer, eight-layered
3 lines, 4 comments
one spoonful
of ice cream brings me
4 lines, 2 comments
a yellow green spider
crawling on
4 lines, 1 comment
a jumble of
flowers planted-
4 lines
a snail
luring rain clouds
4 lines
Start a forum topic about this poet
|
