Intro
After reviewing the poetry that left a strong impression this semester, I ended having 18 different poems to organize my anthology. I noticed that there was almost an even split between summer and winter poems, as well as a split between happy and mujō poems. Initially, I wanted to organize the anthology by themes. However, I eventually noticed different associations that could link and progress each poem, creating a sense of narrative flow. The narrative flow starts in the summer, and then transitions to the winter, where themes of mujō appear in the final poems. The sequence of poems for this anthology embodies the mujō of life, starting with friendship, then marriage then separation, and then finally the end of life. Thus, the readers will experience the cycle mujō in these poems.
1: Poem (Salad Anniversary - 1 - Tawara)
Thinking about you
I recall how found you are
of hot _tofu_-
and I go ahead and buy
the little earthenware pot.
Discussion:
The poem resembles a traditional tanka poem with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern. Tawara's beautifully shows what it means to truly be close to someone you love or enjoy spending time with. It's about showing affection by remembering a small detail about someone, and then taking action. In this case, the eartheware pot implies the idea the speaker will cook tofu to their close friend or lover because they want to express their love and appreciation. Lastly, with the first two lines, I can imagine the speaker going about their day-to-day life in the shopping small and thinking about which items to purchase.
2: Poem (Tales of Ise)
1.
The wilding goose tarrying
on the surface of the field
at Miyoshino
cries that it looks toward you
and toward no other man
2.
When might I forget
the wild goose that tarries
on the surface
of the field at Miyoshino,
crying that it looks toward me?
Discussion:
One of the main reason this particular poetry caught my attention was because the goose and how it was given an adorable and endearing personality. In this case, the goose becomes a way for the speaker of the poem, to indirectly express her unwavering love towards the man. The goose "tarrying" implies the idea that the goose intentionally stayed at Miyoshino field, as if it had a specific goal or looking for a specific owner. Then, the goose "crying" highlights that is trying to gather the man's attention. The modern comparison of this scene would be someone chasing after someone at the airport before they're leaving. The imagery and scene of the goose was different from the past poetry we have read, as I believe it was the first time in poetry that an animal was given emotions. Additionally, the second part of the poem is creative, as it flips the perspective, but uses an almost identical poem to convey that the man is reciprocating the goose's love by acknowledging it. I was wondering if there was a symbolism for wild geese in Japan and found the following website:
https://www.manupropria-pens.ch/angularmomentum-manupropria/uploadfiles/static/003ef19/034e89f6-3c35-44b5-b6d0-96e6cfaafb02.pdf/Japanese%20Symbolic%20Animals%20and%20Plants%20and%20their%20Meaning.pdf
It turns out, wild geese often fly in pairs and thus can represent a happy marriage!
Story/Association:
Event takes place some time after the boy purchases the earthenware pot. Girl sends the boy a poem, boy sends the poem back, reciprocating the love and they eventually become married.
3: Poem (Salad Anniversary - 3 - Tawara)
Folding up towels,
tucking away inside them
the scent of sunlight.
The day may come when I
too shall be a mother.
Discussion:
The idea of the poem is simple, as it is about a someone folding away towels during the summer. However, there a few small details that Tawara includes that brings life and meaning to these seemingly insignificant day-to-day activities. The addition of "tucking away inside them" the towels romanticizes the action of folding towels. This is further by the description, "the scent of sunlight," which emphasizes the idea of love and warmth into doing these chores. What is interesting about this line is the acknowledgement that sunlight is regarded as a sense of smell rather than sense of sight, My interpretation of this that sunlight affects the environment and all the objects within it, which produces a smell linked to warmth and freshness. Finally, in the end, she beautifully reflects how she is transitioning to adulthood. As a child, we are often used to seeing our parents do chores around the house and such. However, as we grow older, we are given these chores and begin to take on more responsibilities like an adult. The speaker realizes this and knows that in the future, she too will likely take on a role as a mother and perhaps continue the cycle. This is represents mujō, as one day, she expects that she will potentially become a mother and has found acceptance in the idea.
Story/Association:
The man and the women marry each other. The wife is currently doing chores at home, and thinks about the prospect of one day becoming a mother.
4: Poem (Buson 2 - Haibun):
Ah, what a pleasure
to cross a stream in summer-
sandals in hand.
Discussion:
Continuing the theme of summer and simple everyday activities, Buson writes about the act of crossing a river stream in the summer. Similar to before, there's a lot of vivid imagery packed into this poem that we can think about. For example, "cross a stream in the summer" implies the temperature is hot and it is bright outside. Then "sandals in hand" suggests the idea the speaker is crossing the stream in his barefoot through the potentially muddy and cold water. Finally, it's also clear that the speaker savors small moments like crossing streams as Buson writes, "Ah, what a pleasure". It's a picturesque description of a summer scene that Buson captures beautifully. To some extent, mujō is present in the poem as the joy that the speaker experiences is only for a short period of time.
Story/Association:
Husband is crossing a stream, enjoying the summer.
5: Poem (Buson - Haibun - 1)
992. WINTER
Over the dishes
go the sound of rat footsteps-
ah, how cold it is!
Discussion:
Just like the previous Buson poem, there is a lot of imagery present in this haiku (5-7-5 syllable) poem. For example, "the sound of rat footsteps" highlights how Buson's home is already very quiet so that the speaker can actually hear the scuttling of the rat. It's important to note that Buson was also an amateur artist, and the detail or emotion about the rat's footsteps would have been difficult to capture in the painting. Then "Over the dishes" sort of implies the idea that there is some dinnerware or tableware placed on the ground in the speaker's home that the rat can reach and that perhaps the sound is only possible to hear over the dishes. In the modern Western era, the typical reaction to a rat being inside your home is alarm, panic, and the feeling of inconvenience. However, the speakers reaction is simply "ah, how cold it is!" It's as if the speaker understands and is used to animals typically taking shelter from the harsh, cold winter. The speaker has accepted animals with inevitably take refuge inside their home and the fact that one has appeared now, symbolizes that the temperature has dropped and winter has arrived.
Story/Association:
Crossing the stream barefoot transitions to the rat footsteps. Transition from summer to winter, symbolizing aging. There is acceptance in the aging process.
6: Poem (Princess Shikishi):
358. MISCELLANEOUS. [From a hundred-poem sequence composed in 1194]
The kind of place
where the way a traveler's tracks
disappear in snow
is something you get used to-
such a place is this world of ours.
Discussion:
Transitioning into the theme of winter, the poem by Princess Shikishi is a traditional tanka poem on the theme of mujō and winter. In this case, the metaphor for mujō is shown through the "traveler's tracks" that "disappear in snow." The traveler's tracks represents the traces of human existence, but now are completely erased by time (or in this case, snow). The speaker highlights the normalcy of mujō with "is something you get used to- such a place is this world of ours", where it is something that occurs constantly, whether it is seeing friends, family, or pets pass away, or seeing the beautiful cherry blossoms scatter. It happens so often that you become more desensitize to the idea of mujō and quietly accept the reality of the world. In the end, Princess Shikishi seems to view the world as indifferent to humanity.
Story/Association: The husband passes away, and the wife writes about mujō and ephemerality.
7: Poem (Fujiwara no Shunzei):
288. MISCELLANEOUS. Written when he was looking at the poems of people long ago, choosing poems for Senzaishu 12
Far in the future,
will someone remember me
with a tender heart-
sharing with me the habit
of musing on the past?
Discussion:
The tanka deals with the idea of leaving behind a legacy. It's the sort poetry that's written as you are becoming of old age or reading the poetry of someone from long ago. Just like the previous poem, the speaker seems to have accepted the idea of mujō--that they too will one day become nonexistent and that their poetry will be left behind for the future generations to read, continuing the cycle. The main focus of this tanka is how the future generations, like us, will regard the speaker (or Fujiwara no Shunzei). The speaker imagines the reader with specifically "a tender heart", that is someone who is not only aware of Fujiwara, but also can appreciate and empathize with his writing. Furthermore, he imagines
someone who shares his intellectual spirit and reflective nature, which is done through reading and connecting with poets of the past. This tanka poem completed resonated with me because it deals with the themes of legacy and the passage of time, something that I often think about as I am about to graduate and work on many other projects.
Story/Association: The old wife now ponders whether someone will remember her and her poetry in the far future.
8: Poem (Otomo no Yakamochi)
98-100. A lament on the ephemerality of life
[98]
The life a man leads
is but a transient affair:
so it has been said
through all the generations
since the ancient time
when heaven and earth began.
Observed from afar
on the broad plain of heaven,
the radiant moon
sometimes waxes, sometimes wanes;
so, too, with treetops
in the foot-wearying hills:
when springtime arrives
they glow with blossoms' beauty,
and in the autumn
their leaves of many colors
are touched by dew and frost
and scatter before the wind.
The life of a man
seems to be no different
The pink flush of youth
fades from the complexion;
the raven tresses,
black as leopard-flower seeds,
take on a new hue;
the morning smile dies at dusk.
I am powerless
to hold back the tears that fall
like a flooding rain
when I think of man's transience,
of how he declines
with changes invisible as a blowing wind,
with changes unremitting as the flow of a river.
Discussion:
The final poem, and one of my personal favorites, summarizes perfectly what mujō and ephemerality of human life means in the chōka (long poem) format. Compared to the previous two poems of about mujō, which handled it with acceptance, the chōka handles it with lamentation. The poem first describes the life of man as a "transient" affair, something that is true since the existence of the "heavens" and "earth." Then, the poem proceeds to parallel the transience of nature to the ephemerality of human life. For example, the speakers describes how the moon "waxes" and "wanes" which symbolizes impermanence and mutability as the moon transitions from the full moon to new moon and vice-versa. The second example is the classic cherry blossoms being beautiful in the spring and then eventually scattering in the fall. The speaker then transitions to the idea that human life is "no different" by describing how the colorful pink youth of man is loss and the color of the hair changing color to grey. The speaker describes these declines as invisible as it is unnoticeable just like the water in the river, which is always different because the body of water is never the same because of the flow. It highlights the brutal passage of time taking slowly taking a toll on human life. Near the end of the poem, the speaker laments about the inevitability of one's life ending. In a way, the speaker would definitely not have been enlightened because of their attachment towards life, which I thought was especially fitting for the sequence of poems that I chose.
Story/Association:
Someone in the far future summarizing and commentating on the concept of mujō.
Conclusion
I wanted the reader to understand mujō by taking them through the sequence of eight poems that were all almost related to mujō. But when the sequence of eight poems were associated and linked together to create a story about the beginning and ending of a happy marriage, there was a mujō overarching theme to the story! It is something that I call a mujōception. Overall, I was satisfied with my anthology, as I did not want to proceed with chronological order as I felt that was a bit boring for me. The random story I created worked better than I thought, as my second plan was to proceed by themes (like seasons or animals). Now, looking back at early responses in the semester and my new analysis of the poems, I definitely felt like there was improvements, especially with connecting back to the idea of mujō (which was the entire semester), including more details about the imagery, and being a bit clearer about interpretations on some of the lines (like the moon waning and waxing). I hope that any reader here enjoyed the story, as I thought it was enjoyable seeing and connecting random links into something cohesive.
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