02.11.23 Maria Bregman is a journalist, writer and contemporary culture researcher.
Japanese poetry is radically different from the European and American poetic culture we are used to. The main types of poems written in characters are tanka (a short lyrical song) and haiku (a traditional sublime syllable).
To the question
“how is it different?” we can talk endlessly about the lack of rhyme, the focus on detail, the cutting off of the poem in the middle so that the reader speculates on the image, but the main difference — is in the way of thinking.
I will return to the poets of the Land of the Rising Sun many more times, talking about them and quoting their poems,
but today I would like to dedicate this publication to one of the most famous poets who made a huge contribution to the culture of the island nation – Ozaki Hideo. But it is unlikely that you know this name… If you are a little familiar with haiku, much more will be told to you by the name Ozaki Hosai, the author’s pseudonym. Despite the traditional adherence of Japan’s masters of the pen in this verse form to adhere to the 5-7-5 syllable size, Ozaki Hosai allowed himself a free-style haiku. His life in general transcended a comprehensible lifestyle. After graduating from the Faculty of Law at the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University and working for some time in a large insurance company, he divorced his wife and (according to one account) went straight into a monastery, according to another he became a laborer, but then he began to live at the monastery anyway, but it was during this period that a new round of his creative path began, thanks to which his poems became famous.
Born Ozaki Hosai on January 20, 1885, died on April 7, 1926, dry dates will tell us almost nothing, but we can see the man by reading two of his haiku;
仏にひまをもらって洗濯してゐる
Buddha
took the day off.
I’m doing laundry
うそをついたやうな 昼の月がある
It’s like a lie
In the middle of the day
There’s a moon in the sky at noon
As a literary man, according to my profession, I should now tell you my idea, reveal the meaning of this and that work. But do I understand them correctly? And is the meaning I understand the real meaning of the poet?
We can all feel something intuitively clear, as a starting point, and then everyone follows his own way of speculation, because Japanese poetry is a special way of thinking. Isn’t it?
