Shuntaro Tanikawa, a pioneer of contemporary Japanese poetry, transferring however conversational in its divergence from haiku and different traditions, has died. He was 92 years outdated.
Tanikawa, who translated the cartoon “Peanuts” and wrote the lyrics for the theme tune for the animated collection “Astro Boy,” died Nov. 13, his son Kensaku Tanikawa mentioned Tuesday. He mentioned his father died in a Tokyo hospital attributable to his outdated age.
Shuntaro Tanikawa shocked the literary world along with his 1952 debut, “Two Billion Gentle Years of Solitude,” a daring take a look at the cosmic in on a regular basis life, sensual, vivid but easy in its use of on a regular basis language. Written earlier than “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez, it grew to become a bestseller.
“Kotoba Asobi Uta” or “Phrase Play Songs” by Tanikawa is a rhythmic experiment wherein similar-sounding phrases, equivalent to “kappa,” a legendary animal, and “rappa,” a horn, are juxtaposed, making a joyous compilation of songs. stuffed with alliteration and onomatopoeia.
“For me, the Japanese language is the bottom. Like a plant, I put down my roots, drink the vitamins of the Japanese language, sprout leaves, flowers and bear fruit,” he mentioned in a 2022 interview with The Related Press at his dwelling in Tokyo.
Tanikawa explored the poetic, not solely within the repetitive music of the spoken phrase but in addition within the magic hidden in small issues.
Certainly one of his works is titled “I wished to speak to you within the kitchen in the course of the night time.”
“Earlier than there was one thing about it being a job, an task. “Now I can write how I would like,” he mentioned.
In each work Tanikawa tackled, together with the script for Kon Ichikawa’s “Tokyo Olympics,” a documentary in regards to the 1964 Tokyo Video games, a respectful love for the great thing about the Japanese language resonates.
He additionally translated Mom Goose, Maurice Sendak and Leo Lionni. Tanikawa, in flip, has been extensively translated, together with English, Chinese language, and a number of other European languages.
A few of his works have been became youngsters’s illustrated books and sometimes seem in Japanese college textbooks. He additionally included Japanese phrases of international origin, equivalent to Coca-Cola, into his poems.
In his prose poem with that title, wherein a boy opens a can of Coca-Cola, he wrote: “If, for instance, he noticed the infinite universe starting or ending on the tip of his can, he was not absolutely conscious of it. One might say that he named every a part of the unknown that was about to swallow him with all of the vocabulary he might muster, which included his future vocabulary that was nonetheless latent in his unconscious.
In his debut poem that catapulted him to stardom, he’s extra parsimonious: “As a result of the universe continues to develop, we’re all stressed. With the chilly of two billion mild years of loneliness, I all of the sudden sneezed,” is how the poem ends, translated by William I Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura.
When requested about it, Tanikawa acknowledged that he felt as if another person had written it, however famous that he nonetheless thought it was a great poem.
“Tanikawa’s poetry displays a metaphysical and virtually non secular angle towards expertise. In easy, sober language, it outlines profound concepts and emotional truths,” in response to the Poetry Basis, an American literary group.
Tanikawa was born in 1931, the son of thinker Tetsuzo Tanikawa, and commenced writing poetry in his teenagers, circulating with the well-known poets of that period, equivalent to Makoto Ooka and Shuji Terayama.
He mentioned he used to assume that poems got here down like inspiration from heaven. However as he grew older, he felt the poems springing from the earth.
In individual, Tanikawa was pleasant and modest, and sometimes learn in public with different poets. He by no means appeared to take himself too severely, however he typically confessed that his solely remorse in life was that he by no means completed his training, having deserted it within the midst of stardom at a younger age.
His relative isolation from the grim and critical educational poetry scene of postwar Japan in all probability helped him undertake his strategy to free verse that innovated and outlined up to date Japanese poetics.
Tanikawa mentioned that he was not afraid of loss of life, implying that maybe he additionally meant to put in writing a poem about that have.
“I am extra interested in the place I will go after I die. It is a completely different world, proper? In fact, I do not need ache. I do not wish to die after main surgical procedure or something like that. “I simply wish to die, all of the sudden,” he mentioned.
He’s survived by his son, musician Kensaku Tanikawa, his daughter Shino and a number of other grandchildren.
Funeral companies have been held privately with household and associates. A farewell occasion is being deliberate in his honor, Kensaku Tanikawa mentioned.
“As they did with all of you, Shuntaro’s poems shocked and moved me, making me giggle or shed a tear. Wasn’t all of it so enjoyable? mentioned. “His poems shall be with you ceaselessly.”
Revealed – Nov 19, 2024 12:33 pm IST
