Cluster Nineteen:
Haiku Stones in Asakusa (1):
Asakusa Shrine

The largest cluster of poem stones, steles and quaint sculptures in Tokyo can be found in the grounds of Sensoji Temple (plus the neighboring shrine) in Asakusa. Tokyo's playground in the Edo and Meiji periods, the still bustling "Asakusa Jamboree" has been handsomely served with loads of monuments. Here we will look at some of the kuhi among this avalanche of stones...

One feature of Asakusa is its popular culture, in the past ranging from film to theater, and from literature to fairs. This haiku was written by Kubota Mantaro (1889-1963), a novelist, playwright and haiku poet in whose works Tokyo's downtown entertainment districts often figure. He was, so to speak, the popular author of Asakusa. Although his main focus was on novels and plays, he also published several collections of haiku and edited a haiku magazine.

The present poem is a reminiscence about the author's youth in Asakusa. The bamboo horse is a toy that in the West of course would be made of wood; iroha and hoheto are syllables from the Iroha Syllabary, so to speak the ABC of Japanese schoolchildren. The poet fondly remembers how, when young, he played with a bamboo horse with his friends and studied together - but now, he says in the last line as I interpret it, those friends have all been dispersed and all that rests of the past is a memory. The reason this haiku was selected for inclusion on the kuhi must have been that Kubota Mantaro went to elementary school in Asakusa.

Another popular novelist who found inspiration in Asakusa was Kawaguchi Matsutaro (1899-1985). His novels are often situated in the popular arts and entertainment world and filled with nostalgia for a vanished world. He won many prizes with novels as Aizen Katsura and Shigurejaya Oriku, and several of his works were made into films. Born in Asakusa, Kawaguchi Matsutaro had many odd jobs, such as working in a pawn shop, before he became famous. The haiku probably refers to that early period of struggle as an upcoming writer.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Kabuki theaters were evicted from the center of Edo. They found a refuge in Asakusa, which thus became the center of Kabuki, a situation that lasted for half a century, until the Kabuki was replaced by Western-style revues. But there still is a Kabuki theatre in Asakusa, especially popular for the plays given here in January, when young and upcoming actors take the stage. Not surprisingly, we find several kuhi related to the theater and the Kabuki in the grounds of Sensoji. The picture shows actor Ichikawa Danjuro IX while performing the popular aragoto play Shibaraku, a statue standing at the back of the Kannon Hall.

The haiku cited here is by the Kabuki actor Ichikawa Ennosuke III (1888-1963), and was written when in old age he ceded the name Ennosuke and took a new one, En'o ("O" means "old man," a title often used for Basho). He died shortly afterwards and the haiku expresses the difficulty with which he said goodbye to his original actor's name.

Another Asakusa-born Kabuki actor was Nakamura Kichiemon I (1886-1954), who dominated the Kabuki stage in the Taisho and early Showa periods, but also studied haiku with Takahama Kyoshi. He published three volumes of haiku, written under the sobriquet Kichiemon. The present poem was written in 1939, when he visited Sensoji together with his wife Chiyo, who had also been born in Asakusa. They take part in the symbolical ringing of the temple bell, 108 times, on New Year's Eve.