Scribd Logo

Language

Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

Enjoy millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more, with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda
I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda
I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda
Ebook124 pages1 hour

I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda

By Momoko Kuroda

4.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Momoko Kuroda (b. 1938) is a remarkable haiku spirit and a powerfully independent Japanese woman. The one hundred poems here—her first collection in English—show her evolution as a poet, her acute lyricism, and her engagement as a writer in issues central to modern Japan: postwar identity, nuclear politics, and Fukushima. Abigail Friedman's introduction and textual commentaries provide important background and superb insight into poetic themes and craft.

I wait for fireflies / I wait as if for someone / who will never return

Momoko Kuroda is one of Japan's most well-known haiku poets.

Abigail Friedman lives near Washington, DC, and is author of The Haiku Apprentice.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherStone Bridge Press
Release dateSep 29, 2014
ISBN9781611729085
I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda
Read preview

Related to I Wait for the Moon

Related ebooks

Related podcast episodes

Related articles

  • Article

    War Frame

    Jan 1, 1970

    War Frame
    1 min read

  • Article

    Two Poems

    Jan 1, 1970

    When she sees me, she turns awayAs if there weren’t, between us, things.—Ahmad Shawqi staring at you,we held ideals, earlier I told you howmuch I loved your socks, we smiled andsipped on boiling thyme, yousaid it was time to go,I went:your hairblack,

    1 min read

  • Article

    Grand Prizes For Poems

    Jan 1, 1970

    The National Poetry Competition, the world’s most prestigious prize for a single poem, has a first prize of £5,000. The international competition from the Poetry Society for single poems has prizes of £5,000, £2,000 and £1,000. Commended poets each g

    1 min read

  • Article

    Flashes

    Jan 1, 1970

    Anthology Poetry Award 2022 is inviting entries of original, unpublished poems on the theme of ‘Dreams’, up to forty lines. The winner will receive €500 and have their work published in Anthology magazine, plus a year’s subscription. The entry fee is

    1 min read

  • Article

    In The Aftermath

    Jan 1, 1970

    The theme for the 2021/22 Never Such Innocence Poetry Competition for young poets is ‘Life After Conflict’. NSI hopes that poets entering the competition will be inspired to think about how people, communities and countries will be inspired to build

    1 min read

  • Article

    Something For Everyone

    Jan 1, 1970

    Segora International Writing Competitions 2021 has categories for poetry, short stories, vignettes and one-act plays. The annual creative writing contest is run by Poetry Prose and Plays. • Poetry: Enter original, unpublished poems up to 50 lines. Th

    1 min read

  • Article

    Swimming In Poetry

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Fish Poetry Prize is inviting entries of original, unpublished poems on any theme and in any style, up to 60 lines. There is a first prize of €1,000. The second prize is a week in residence at Anam Cara Writers’ and Artists’ Retreat and €300, and

    1 min read

  • Article

    Poetry

    Jan 1, 1970

    Poems are birds in the kingdoms of languagesAlways flying towards each other and paradise Poetry is a time tunnel through whichYou and I gaze at each otherTime immemorial and nowEvery year the world is breaking apartEvery year love would not end Poet

    1 min read

  • Article

    Flashes

    Jan 1, 1970

    The South Downs Poetry Festival is inviting entries for the Binsted Prize 2022. The annual prize is for original, unpublished poems on any theme, no longer than fifty lines. Prizes are £300, £150 and £50. This year’s judge is Naomi Foyle. The entry f

    1 min read

  • Article

    It’s All About Reading

    Jan 1, 1970

    Describing itself as ‘a magazine about reading, for and by readers’ New York-based Oh Reader is published in print and online four times a year and is looking for non fiction/essay, humour and poetry to include ‘insightful stories, hilarious observat

    1 min read

  • Article

    Global Poetry Market

    Jan 1, 1970

    Vegetarian Alcoholic has an editorial team who love poetry and that is what they mainly publish. Spend time at the website reading what they publish as their guidelines are terse. This team believe that books have the power to change lives and they s

    1 min read

  • Article

    Take A Leap

    Jan 1, 1970

    The winner of the Frogmore Poetry Prize 2022 will receive £250 guineas and a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers. The annual Frogmore Poetry Prize invites entries of original, unpublished poetry no longer than 40 lines. The winner’s prize is

    1 min read

  • Article

    Next Steps

    Jan 1, 1970

    Listen to the following ‘The Poetry Pharmacy’ podcast episode by William Sieghart, which explains the inspiration behind his anthology, The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-And-True Prescriptions For The Heart, Mind And Soul (Penguin, £14.99): soundcloud.com/5

    1 min read

  • Article

    Editor

    Jan 1, 1970

    Howdy Scoopets, I’m ecstatic to be guest editor on this musically poetic issue. Poetry has been a huge part of my life, starting out as a hobby in school, becoming a pastime as I took my poems to the stage and then turning into a career as I got pub

    1 min read

  • Article

    A Poetic Furrow

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Plough 2021 Poetry Prize is open for entries This year the annual competition from Plough Arts Centre will be judged by Roger The competition is for original, unpublished poetry up to forty lines. The first prize is £1,000 and there are second an

    1 min read

  • Article

    Nothing Fishy About This Competition

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Fish Poetry Prize invites entries of original, unpublished poems up to sixty lines. The first prize in the annual contest from Fish Publishing is €1,000. The second prize is a week in residence at Anam Cara Writers’ Retreat, and the third prize i

    1 min read

  • Article

    All’s Wells

    Jan 1, 1970

    Wells Festival of Literature is inviting entries for its 2020 creative writing competitions. The competitions are in the following categories: • Open Poetry. The first prize is £1,000, and there are second and third prizes of £500 and £250. Enter poe

    1 min read

  • Article

    Babelling Brookes

    Jan 1, 1970

    Win £1,000 first prizes in the Open and EAL categories of the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition Enter original, unpublished poems no longer than 50 lines. The competition is for new and established poets and international entries are we

    1 min read

  • Article

    On Spiritual Lines

    Jan 1, 1970

    Manchester Cathedral Poetry Competition 2020 is open for entries. There is a £500 first prize in the competition for spiritual or broadly religious poems Enter original, unpublished poems up to forty lines. The first prize is £500, and there are seco

    1 min read

  • Article

    Wandering Minstrels Roll Up

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2021 is inviting entries. John McAuliffe and Linda Gregerson are the judges for the contest from Coffee House Poetry, and will read all the entries. The first prize is £2,000. There is a second prize of £1,00

    1 min read

  • Article

    Young Writers, Look Back

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Young Walter Scott Prize is for stories by writers aged 11-19, set in a time before they were born. Stories should be between 800 and 2,000 words, and may take any form, ie prose, poetry, drama, fictional diaries, letters or reportage. Winners in

    1 min read

  • Article

    A New Generation Of Poets

    Jan 1, 1970

    A New Generation Of Poets
    1 min read

  • Article

    How To Enter The COUNTRY LIFE Poetry Competition

    Jan 1, 1970

    COUNTRY LIFE poetry competition offers readers the chance to see their work published in the magazine and we'd love to see your poems, however loosely based, on the theme of the countryside and Nature. It is open to established and unpublished writer

    1 min read

  • Article

    Poetic Forces Of Nature

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition 2023 is inviting entries. This year’s competition for nature poetry will be judged by Ian McMillan. The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition is being run by The Rialto poetry journal in association

    1 min read

  • Article

    Open The Door To A Poetry Win

    Jan 1, 1970

    The StoryTown 2022 Poetry Competition from StoryTown Corsham is for poems on the theme of ‘Doorways’. The competition, which is part of StoryTown Corsham’s annual celebration of reading, writing and storytelling, is now in its third year. This year i

    1 min read

  • Article

    Bus Pass

    Jan 1, 1970

    Winning poems from the Guernsey International Poetry Competition 2023 will be displayed on Guernsey buses.  The Poems on the Move competition is inviting entries of poems no longer than 14 lines. 21 winning poems will be displayed on buses, and a sel

    1 min read

  • Article

    The Long And The Short Of It

    Jan 1, 1970

    Entries are invited in two separate categories for short poems and longer poems in the Magma 2022/2023 Poetry Competition. The categories in the annual contest are: • The Judge’s Prize for poems between 11 and 50 lines. This year’s judge is Victoria

    1 min read

  • Article

    In Defence Of Poems

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Soldiers Arts Academy International Poetry Competition 2022, an international contest for poems from the military community, is running for a second year. The SAA International Poetry Competition has an open theme, and is open to all members of t

    1 min read

  • Article

    Way Out West Country For Poets

    Jan 1, 1970

    The Teignmouth Poetry Festival Poetry Competition is inviting entries of original, unpublished poems no longer than 36 lines. In the open category, which will be judged by Katrina Naomi, the prizes are £600, £300 and £200. The local category for poem

    1 min read

  • Article

    Signs Of Spring

    Jan 1, 1970

    Shepton Snowdrops 2023 Poetry Competition is inviting entries. The theme of this year’s contest is ‘Let Nature Thrive’ The 2023 Shepton Snowdrops Poetry Competition will be judged by nature poet Wendy Pratt. There are prizes in three categories: • 18

    1 min read

Related categories

Reviews for I Wait for the Moon

4.5/5

3 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    I Wait for the Moon - Momoko Kuroda

    The poet standing beside a stone carving of her haiku, at the ceremony for the unveiling of the stone, July 2013, Kikusui0ji temple, Saitama Prefecture. The haiku, 花満ちてゆく鈴の音の湧くやうに, blossoms overflowing as the sound of ringing bells, is from her fifth collection, Nikkō Gekkō.

    I Wait for the Moon

    100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda

    Translated with commentary by Abigail Friedman

    Stone Bridge Press • Berkeley, California

    Published by

    Stone Bridge Press

    P. O. Box 8208, Berkeley, CA 94707

    TEL 510-524-8732 • sbp@stonebridge.com • www.stonebridge.com

    English text and translation ©2014 Abigail Friedman.

    Haiku in Japanese © Momoko Kuroda. Used by permission.

    Book design and layout by Linda Ronan.

    All rights reserved.

    No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher.

    Printed in the United States of America.

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1            2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014

    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION

    Kuroda, Momoko, 1938– author.

    [Poems. Selections. English]

    I wait for the moon : 100 haiku of Momoko Kuroda / Momoko Kuroda.

        pages cm

    p-isbn 978-1-61172-016-7 (paperback)

    e-isbn: 978-1-61172-908-5 (e-book)

    1. Haiku--Translations into English. I. Title.

    PL855.U6895A2 2014

    895.61'5–dc23

    2014031936

    For Eric,

    the love of my life

    Contents

    Introduction

    Acknowledgments

    Notes on the Text

       IA Big John Lennon

      IIDeep Beneath the Sea

     IIIWhite Leek

     IVDistant Mountain Cherry

      VBurning Leaves

     VIThe Path to Kumano

    VIIRiver of Fireflies

    Endnotes

    Selected Bibliography

    Kuroda Momoko: Life and Chronology

    Introduction

    Kuroda Momoko is one of the most active and highly regarded haiku poets in Japan today. When I first met her over a decade ago, I was just beginning my haiku journey and knew nothing of her stature. In an earlier book, The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan, I relate my chance encounter with Ōiwa Kōhei, a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor and amateur haiku poet who invited me to join his haiku group that met in Numazu, at the foot of Mt. Fuji. At the time, I was living in Japan as an American diplomat and had only just become interested in haiku. Mr. Ōiwa must have mentioned that Momoko led the group, but as I had never heard her name that piece of information escaped me. It was not until I attended the Numazu haiku group some weeks later and met Momoko in person that I began to sense what a remarkable woman she is. Even then, I was struck above all by her appearance—her exotic monpe-style clothing, the square cut of her bangs, and her confident smile.

    Still ignorant of the extent of her renown in the haiku world, I wrote to her some time later asking if she might give me private haiku lessons. In her book Tegami Saijiki (Tokyo: Hakusuisha, 2012), Momoko describes receiving my letter. I had neglected to use the standard honorific -san or -sama after her name on the envelope, a major faux pas in Japan. Momoko recalls that the envelope gave her the feeling she was receiving a summons from the tax authorities. Yet she read on and, despite my poor form and clumsy Japanese script, she sensed my sincere yearning to learn more about haiku. She agreed to meet, and this was the beginning of our relationship and what over the years has become our friendship.

    Momoko and I met on and off for two years, teacher and student, until I left Japan in the summer of 2003. I fully expected that I would turn the page on haiku and that writing haiku would become one of the many activities that I once did, or that I used to enjoy. But I was wrong. Upon my return to the United States, I plunged into my work as a diplomat but would find haiku rising within me at unexpected times. I would notice the small splashes my shoes made as I walked out of the office into the early evening drizzle. I would look out the kitchen window into our backyard and notice the way the bamboo bent under the weight of the snow. Watching my teenage daughter dressed in black walking down the street on her way to school, I would think of the beauty of Bashō’s lone crow perched on a branch. Grabbing a scrap of paper, I would turn these impressions into haiku.

    Meanwhile, Momoko continued to take an interest in my development as a haiku poet, sending me journals and books, some her own and some written by others whom she respected. I joined haiku organizations in the United States and Canada, contributed haiku to a number of collections, won some awards, and started the first bilingual French/English haiku group in Quebec City. The Haiku Apprentice came out in 2006 and was translated into Japanese in 2010. The following year, unprompted, I decided the time had come for me to translate Momoko’s haiku into English.

    My first challenge in presenting Momoko’s haiku was to settle on which of her haiku to translate from the over three thousand in her six haiku collections and the several thousand more that are uncollected. I consulted with Momoko who, as in every aspect of this book, was encouraging but who also insisted on placing me in the lead. You choose, she said. Even more than the satisfaction of seeing her haiku translated into English, I sensed that Momoko was drawn to this project by her curiosity as to which haiku spoke to me as a non-Japanese. She approached my efforts somewhat the way she approaches a haiku group. Momoko once told me that while it is pleasurable to write, polish, and re-read one’s haiku alone, there is another satisfaction to be gained in joining a haiku group and in sharing our haiku with others. "Think about what a haiku represents. This small chalice of only seventeen sounds is, in truth, an expression of the

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1