Literature: Takahama Kyoshi

Do you know haiku poet Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959)? He was a central figure in the 20th century, claiming the conservative part of Shiki's heritage (including the magazine Hototogisu), and with strict hand lorded it over the haiku world, in feudal and good political fashion starting a new dynasty as he was succeeded as "haiku emperor" by his daughter and other family members... (Sato Hiroaki calls him "the dictatorial inheritor of the conservative wing of the Shiki circle").

So far I had never been very enthusiastic about Kyoshi's haiku. I felt strengthened in this view by the fact that there have been no studies or translations dedicated to Kyoshi in English. Kyoshi wrote 50,000 haiku and many are occasional verse where he uses a place name as filler. One could just as well fill in another name. Other haiku by Kyoshi are very pompous, perhaps an indication of the man's character, but also a deadly sin in a genre that should be full of karumi.

But I recently found two articles on the web that at least partially changed my opinion. The most important one is a translation of 101 exceptional haiku of Kyoshi by Katsuya Hiromoto of Keio University and published in one of the university's online magazines. Another article by the same author gives a biography of Kyoshi.

The second article is on the Kyoshi Memorial Museum website which carries detailed discussions of 15 of his haiku (plus again a biography).

Here are some of Kyoshi's simplest and therefore best haiku (in my own literal renderings):

tohyama ni | hi no ataritaru | kareno kana

on distant hills
the sun shines down:
barren field

gyohzui no | onna ni horeru | karasu kana

falling in love
with a bathing woman:
a crow

doka to toku | natsu-obi ni ku wo | kake to koso

with a thud
she untied her summer sash:
"write me a haiku here!"

The last two haiku even are humorous!

[Classic Haiku by Miura also contains translations of several haiku by Kyoshi.]