Presentation Information
[T14-P-3]A series of "geo-poets" in Japan: Kenji Miyazawa, Shimpei Kusano, and Kiyoko Nagase
*Akira ISHIWATARI1 (1. President of Japanese Association for the History of Geological Sciences)
Keywords:
Poem,Children's story,Geography and geology of birthplaces,Metal and coal mines,Sympathy to the Earth's geologic past
___Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), born in Hanamaki City, Iwate Prefecture, studied geology in his high school. His poems and children's stories included many names of rocks, minerals, fossils, geological ages, and geological phenomena such as volcanic eruption. These terms have been thoroughly examined by geologists (Miyagi, 1975, 1977, 1980; Kanisawa, 2003; Kato, 2006). Other features of Kenji's products are a round-trip over a vast extent of time and space, breaking the barrier between life and death, as seen in his "Night on the Milky Way Train", and his love on small creatures and those oppressed. These may have been inspired by the stories in Buddha's Lotus Sutra in which Kenji believed.
___Shimpei Kusano (1903-1988), born in Ogawa, Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, contributed greatly to make Kenji's products known all over Japan. In 1924, Kenji in his age 28 printed 1,000 copies each of his first poem anthology "Mental Sketch: Spring and Asura (demon)" and children's story "The Restaurant of Many Orders" in his own expense, but they did not sell well. Shimpei studied at Lingnan (Zhongshan) University in South China at that time, and he was greatly impressed by Kenji's anthology that was sent from his friend in Japan. After Shimpei came back to Japan in 1925, he invited Kenji to his poet group that issued a journal "Dora" (gong). Kenji responded to Shimpei: "I am not self-confident as a poet, but I want to be recognized as a mature scientist", with two poems and 1 yen money order (Hojo, 2009). In 1926 August issue of "Muse" (Shishin), Shimpei published a review titled "Three Persons", and praised Kenji as a genius. In 1931 July issue of "Muse", Shimpei published "A Study of Kenji Miyazawa". In 1931-1932, two children's stories including "The Life of Budori Gusuko" were published in a journal, but Kenji passed away on 21 September 1933. On 23 October 1933, Memorial Lectures were held in the City Hall of Hanamki, and Shimpei addressed on Kenji's works. Shimpei published "Obituary for Kenji Miyazawa" in January 1934 and three volumes of "Complete Works of Kenji Miyazawa" by September 1935 (These notes are based on "Researches on Kenji Miyazawa" and "Anthology of poems of Shimpei Kusano").
___Shimpei adored stones that induced him a sympathetic feeling of the ancestral heritage from the Earth's geologic past, and collected small stones from all over the world during his travels. He is famous for his "frog" poems, but stones and minerals are also important in his poems. His poem "A stone" recites: "Being wet in rain. / In solitude. / A stone sits here. / Containing billion years. / In dim light. / A haze embraces it." (1940; "Zekkei" (grand view)).
___Kiyoko Nagase (1906-1995) was born in Matsuki, Akaiwa City, Okayama Prefecture. In 1932 (Shirane, 2026), when she lived in Tokyo, Shimpei visited her home to receive an order of name cards and handed her a copy of "Spring and Asura" of Kenji. Kiyoko wrote her impression in the August issue of "Pain" (bread). On 16 February 1934, Memorial Meeting for Kenji Miyazawa was held in Restaurant Mon Ami underneath the Teito-za Theater in Shinjuku 3-chome, Tokyo, and Kiyoko saw Kotaro Takamura (poet, sculptor) and Seiroku Miyazawa (a younger brother of Kenji). Kiyoko described in detail the discovery of so-called "Strong in the rain Pocket Notebook", which unexpectedly appeared from Kenji's big trunk that was carried by Seiroku.
___Kiyoko also employed minerals to compose her poems, and confessed her sympathy to the Earth by a phrase "I may have been here on the Earth for some hundreds of million years".
___The birthplaces of these three poets are in common narrow valleys surrounded by woody small mountains, which are made of sedimentary and igneous rocks of some 10 million years or older ages. The mountains are commonly capped by mafic-ultramafic rocks. Important metallic ores and coal mines were excavated in the nearby areas when they were young. It may not be fortuitous that the three "geo-poets" have grown in the places with such common geographic and geologic features.
___Shuntaro Tanikawa (1931-2024) inherited these "geo-poets" as seen in his "Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude" (1952), and they together cultivated pro-science attitude of contemporary Japanese to face nature.
___Shimpei Kusano (1903-1988), born in Ogawa, Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, contributed greatly to make Kenji's products known all over Japan. In 1924, Kenji in his age 28 printed 1,000 copies each of his first poem anthology "Mental Sketch: Spring and Asura (demon)" and children's story "The Restaurant of Many Orders" in his own expense, but they did not sell well. Shimpei studied at Lingnan (Zhongshan) University in South China at that time, and he was greatly impressed by Kenji's anthology that was sent from his friend in Japan. After Shimpei came back to Japan in 1925, he invited Kenji to his poet group that issued a journal "Dora" (gong). Kenji responded to Shimpei: "I am not self-confident as a poet, but I want to be recognized as a mature scientist", with two poems and 1 yen money order (Hojo, 2009). In 1926 August issue of "Muse" (Shishin), Shimpei published a review titled "Three Persons", and praised Kenji as a genius. In 1931 July issue of "Muse", Shimpei published "A Study of Kenji Miyazawa". In 1931-1932, two children's stories including "The Life of Budori Gusuko" were published in a journal, but Kenji passed away on 21 September 1933. On 23 October 1933, Memorial Lectures were held in the City Hall of Hanamki, and Shimpei addressed on Kenji's works. Shimpei published "Obituary for Kenji Miyazawa" in January 1934 and three volumes of "Complete Works of Kenji Miyazawa" by September 1935 (These notes are based on "Researches on Kenji Miyazawa" and "Anthology of poems of Shimpei Kusano").
___Shimpei adored stones that induced him a sympathetic feeling of the ancestral heritage from the Earth's geologic past, and collected small stones from all over the world during his travels. He is famous for his "frog" poems, but stones and minerals are also important in his poems. His poem "A stone" recites: "Being wet in rain. / In solitude. / A stone sits here. / Containing billion years. / In dim light. / A haze embraces it." (1940; "Zekkei" (grand view)).
___Kiyoko Nagase (1906-1995) was born in Matsuki, Akaiwa City, Okayama Prefecture. In 1932 (Shirane, 2026), when she lived in Tokyo, Shimpei visited her home to receive an order of name cards and handed her a copy of "Spring and Asura" of Kenji. Kiyoko wrote her impression in the August issue of "Pain" (bread). On 16 February 1934, Memorial Meeting for Kenji Miyazawa was held in Restaurant Mon Ami underneath the Teito-za Theater in Shinjuku 3-chome, Tokyo, and Kiyoko saw Kotaro Takamura (poet, sculptor) and Seiroku Miyazawa (a younger brother of Kenji). Kiyoko described in detail the discovery of so-called "Strong in the rain Pocket Notebook", which unexpectedly appeared from Kenji's big trunk that was carried by Seiroku.
___Kiyoko also employed minerals to compose her poems, and confessed her sympathy to the Earth by a phrase "I may have been here on the Earth for some hundreds of million years".
___The birthplaces of these three poets are in common narrow valleys surrounded by woody small mountains, which are made of sedimentary and igneous rocks of some 10 million years or older ages. The mountains are commonly capped by mafic-ultramafic rocks. Important metallic ores and coal mines were excavated in the nearby areas when they were young. It may not be fortuitous that the three "geo-poets" have grown in the places with such common geographic and geologic features.
___Shuntaro Tanikawa (1931-2024) inherited these "geo-poets" as seen in his "Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude" (1952), and they together cultivated pro-science attitude of contemporary Japanese to face nature.
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