The Controversial Debut of Terayama Shūji As A Tanka Poet

Japanese Studies
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The controversial debut of Terayama Shūji as a

Tanka poet
Hiromi Taki
To cite this article: Hiromi Taki (1994) The controversial debut of Terayama Shūji as a Tanka
poet, Japanese Studies, 14:3, 50-65, DOI: 10.1080/10371399408727588
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50 Japanese Studies Bulletin Vol. 14, No. 3,1994
The Controversial Debut of Terayama Shūji as a Tanka

Poet
Hiromi Taki
1
I "erayama Shūji (1935-83), is widely known as an avant garde
A playwright who in 1967 founded his own experimental
Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 14:39 12 February 2016
1
theatrical company, Tenjō Sajiki. He was also active as a critic,
essayist, novelist, scriptwriter and filmmaker as well as a poet of
haiku, tanka and free verse. It seems that starting with the horse
racing boom in 1988 when his book on his serialised columns of race
tips was posthumously published, his popularity has risen rapidly
with the restaging of his plays, republication of his works, and
publication of special features and books on his works and life. The
development of the so-called 'sub-cultural' tanka style with the
boom of Salad Anniversary2 by Tawara Machi (b. 1962),3 and the
recent appearance of young male newcomers4 whose tanka styles are
comparable to Terayama's early tanka,5 have made the re-
evaluation of his tanka more compelling than ever. This paper
examines his debut as a tanka poet which set off his multi-talented
career.
Considering how much the tanka world was shattered by attacks on

it as a second-rate art shortly after the end of the Second World
1 . Takatori Ei, Terayama Shūji-ron, Tokyo: Shichōsha, 1992 (hereafter

TSR), p. 281.
2 See Hiromi Taki, 'Salad Boom: A Reflection of Modern Japanese
Society', in Carole Cusack et. al. (eds), They Came, They Spoke, They
Progressed, Sydney: Sydney University Postgraduate Representative
Association, 1993, pp. 31-6.
3 Takatori Ei, 'Terayama Shūji botsugo jūnen', Gendaishi techō,36:6,
April 1993, pp. 72-3, 77, 79.
4 For example, Tanaka Akiyoshi (b. 1970) won the Kadokawa Tanka
Prize in 1990 and was praised for his youthful masculine style of
tanka. His first tanka anthology, Penki nuritate (Fresh Paint), was
seen as showing his growing process from a boy to a youth. See Okai
Takashi et. al., 'Jushōsha kettei made' in Tanka, 37:6, June 1990, pp.
83-4, and Matsudaira Meiko et. al., 'Warera seishun kajin, ōini
kataru', in Tanka, 38:1, January 1991, p. 92.
5 Okai Takashi et. al., 'Terayama Shūji to Kishigami Daisaku', Tanka,
39:12, December 1992 (hereafter T 39:12), p. 57.
Vol. 14, No. 3,1994 Japanese Studies Bulletin 51
, the death of the two great tanka poets, Saitō Mokichi

(1882-1953) and Shaku Chōkū (1887-1953),7 in 1953 was an even
bigger blow to the modern tanka world. However, in 1954
Kadokawa Shoten challenged the dominance of the only national
tanka magazine, Tanka kenkyii, with the publication of Tanka. In
the same year, Tanka kenkyu initiated the search for new talent by
holding a 'Fifty Tanka Contest'. Ueda Miyoji (1923-1989)
estimated that this contest triggered the beginning of avant garde

tanka by encouraging iconoclastic anti-realist tanka. The first
winner of the contest in April 1954 was Nakajō Fumiko (1922-1954)
whose style conformed to the so-called 'female tanka' (onna-uta)
advocated by Shaku Chōkū.^ The second winner was Terayama in
November 1954, a newcomer to the modernist tanka scene.9
The choice of Nakajō as winner of the first contest was widely

condemned by conservative senior tanka poets, but this changed to
recognition when it was learnt that Kawabata Yasunari (1899-
1972) wrote a preface for her anthology. 1 0 Nakai Hideo (1922-
1993), then the editor of Tanka kenkyu and one of the judges, was
extremely careful when announcing the result of the second contest.
In November 1954, the editorial board of Tanka kenkyu anticipated
criticism when they selected the eighteen year old Terayama.
They wrote that youthfulness should not be considered a sin in
tanka poetry, 1 1 and further that Terayama's tanka beautifully
6 See Hiromi Taki, 'On The History Of The Extinction Polemic In

Modern Tanka Poetry', The Journal Of The Oriental Society Of
Australia, 24, 1992, pp. 96-110.
7 Also known as Orikuchi Shinobu. He was a scholar of Japanese
literature and folklore. Shaku Chōkū was his tanka pen name.
8 See Hiromi Taki, 'Tanka Poetry of Nakajō Fumiko: A Literary
Reflection of the Scars of the Second World War on Japanese
Women', in Alison Tokita (ed.), Representations of Gender in
Japanese Cultural Forms, Melbourne: The Japanese Studies Centre,
1994 forthcoming.
9 Ueda Miyoji, Sengo tankashi, Tokyo: San'ichi shobō, 1974 (hereafter
STS), p. 135.
10 See Hiromi Taki, 'Grief At The Loss Of My Breasts: On The Tanka
Of Nakajō Fumiko (1922-1954)', The Journal Of The Oriental Society
Of Australia, 22 & 23, 1990-91, pp. 156-69.
11 Editorial Board, 'Atogaki', Tanka kenkyū, 11:11, November 1954
(hereafter TK 11:11), p. 132.
expressed the loneliness of a boy from the northern region of

Japan.12
The following is an example from Terayama's winning collection of

tanka published as 'Chekhov Festival' in Tanka kenkyu i n
November 1954:
Akahata uru ware o natsuchd koeyukeri haha wa furusato

no ta o uchiteimu^
A siimmer butterfly has flown over me

as I sell Akahata,
14
my mother must be tilling the rice field in my hometown.
The dramatic construction of this tanka tells the story of a youth

who has come to Tokyo and is selling the communist newspaper,
Akahata, while his mother is tilling a rice field in his
hometown. 1 ^ This tanka overlaps the reality of Terayama who
came from Aomori to study at Waseda University in Tokyo while
his mother was working, even if not in the rice field, to send him
money.
The same dramatic setting can also be seen in the following tanfcn:16
Chehofu-sai no bira no harareshi ringo no ki kasukani

7
yururu kisha taru tabfl
Postered with Chekhov festival leaflets

an apple tree slightly rustles
whenever a train passes by.
In fact, there was no Chekhov festival in 1954, and even if there

had been one, no-one would have thought of posting a leaflet on an
12 Editorial Board, 'Ōbo sakuhin happyō', TK 11:11, p. 26.

13 Terayama Shūji, 'Chehofu-sai', TK 11:11, p. 6.
14 Although Terayama's original tanka appear in single vertical lines, I
have adopted the three-line format in my translations of this paper.
15 Mizuno Masao, '<Watakushi> sei o megutte', T 39:12, p. 167.
16 Idem.
insignificant place like a tree. However, this tanka is lyrically

and skilfully written as if such things could be true. 1 8
The following tanka reveals the cynical eye of a boy who was
aware of how contradictory the teacher was to stress the word
'tomorrow' to the students when he himself did not seem to care
much about his own 'tomorrow' by being a smoker:
Tabako kusaki kokugo kybshi ga iu toki ni asu to iu go wa

mottomo kanashfi9
The word tomorrow

is the saddest
when the cigarette-smelling teacher of Japanese says it.
The declaration that the wasteland is his own 'virgin soil1 in the
following tanka expresses the ambition of a boy.
Hitotsubu no himawari no tane makishi nomi ni kbya o

ware no shojochi to yobiki2®
I have only sowed a single seed of sunflower

so I call this wasteland
my virgin soil.
The youthful determination to start cultivating the deserted land

with only a sunflower seed, a seasonal word of summer in haiku,
seems to indicate the belief in a promising future as sunflowers grow
tall, have big flowers and bear a lot of seeds.
Ueda confidently claimed that the youthfulness of Terayama's

tanka was outstanding as his images were vivid and his expression
was light. By using his acting talent and subduing his real
intention, Terayama captured the melancholy of youth in his tanka
style which was reminiscent of a chanson.21
Although Terayama's tanka have some ponderous aspects when

read now, they appeared bright and fresh when they first came out.
18 Mizuno Masao, '<Watakushi>', T 39:12, p. 167.

20 Ibid., p. 10.
21 Ueda Miyoji, STS, pp. 157-8.
There had been basically only two types of tanka: the realism of
Araragf2- where the 'selfhood' (watakushi-sei) of poets was strong
and where the dark image of the Second World War was still
apparent; and the so-called people's tanka which only described
people's life and poor quality of the poetry did not matter. 2 3
Nakai recalled:
Before the appearance of Terayama in 1954, the tanka

world was like a village where senior poets held absolute
power believing that their aging was sacred and stagnation
was a sign of developing depth. A strict hierarchy
controlled the tanka world where poets in their fifties were
regarded as of medium standing and those in their thirties
as newcomers. So Terayama's appearance when he was
still a teenager was like the miracle birth of Aphrodite as
if to show that he was the aroma of the essence of youth. 2 4
Because of his concern about the tendency in the tanka world which
enjoyed giving the most violent abuse to newcomers, Nakai only
published thirty-four out of Terayama's fifty tanka and changed
the original title, 'Chichi kaese' (Bring my father back!), to
'Chekhov Festival'. 2 ^ This arrangement shifted the focus of
Terayama's original intention for his fifty tanka, in which the
main theme had been the absence of his father, as in the following
examples:
Oto tatete haka-ana fukaku chichi no hitsugi orosaruru

toki chichi mezamezu ya^
22 A tanka magazine originally edited by Kesshin Ichiro in October

1908. In 1909, Araragi became a magazine for the Negishi Tanka
Group founded by Masaoka Shiki who had advocated the realism of
Man'yōshū. Since the Taisho era the realism of Araragi dominated
the tanka world.
23 Okai Takashi et. al., 'Terayama Shūji to Kishigami Daisaku', T 39:12,
pp. 62-3.
24 Nakai Hideo, 'Kuroko no tankashi', Nakai Hideo, Nakai Hideo
sakuhinshū, Separate Volume, Tokyo: San'ichi shobō, 1988 (hereafter
NHS), p. 346.
25 Ibid., p. 349.
When the coffin of my father

is lowered deep into the grave making sounds,
will he not wake up?
Himazoari wa karetsutsu hana o sasageori chichi no bohyb

wa ware yori hikushP-^
I dedicate flowers
while sunflowers are withering,
the grave-post of my father is shorter than me.
A postwar motif of 'wanting the dead father back' was fully

expressed in Terayama's poems together with the 'selfhood' of
modern tanka which, by the influences of Masaoka Shiki (1867-
1902) and naturalism in novels, developed the concept of 'poet
equals protagonist'.-^ The loss of his father, who was called into
the army when Terayama was five and who died from a disease
contracted at the front, seemed to remain as an irreparable loss for
Terayama who could only miss the phantom of his father. His
tanka on his father reveal an emptiness in which the adoration *of
his father is transformed into longing.^^
Upon winning the contest, Terayama held that liberation from

death and affirmation of life could be achieved in the short poetic
style. He claimed that the pattern of such a poetic style had to be
a true reflection of one's aesthetic consciousness and world view, and
its rhythm had to correspond to the ' breath of the present'. He was
moved by the justice of Tanka kentyu selecting Nakajō for the first
'Fifty Tanka Contest' because her work brought him 'a passionately
new recognition of and dedication to tanka.'^ The same kind of
self-abuse which was a distinctive feature of Nakajō's tanka can be
seen in the following tanka by Terayama:
27 Ibid., p. 9.
28 Okai Takashi, 'Terayama Shūji rd okeru <watakushi-sei> no hassei to
henbō', Gendaishi techō, 26:12, November 1983 (hereafter GST
26:12), pp. 208-9, 211-2.
29 Satō Michimasa, 'Chichi to haha--sono aizō', T 39:12, pp. 158-60.
30 Terayama Shūji, 'Hi no keisō', Tanka kenkyū, 11:12, December 1954
(hereafter TK 11:12), p. 118.
Naki chichi no kunshd wa nao hanasazari boshi no tenraku

hisokani hayashfi*
Still keeping the decoration of my deceased father,

the downfall of a mother and child
is secretly fast.
Contrary to the expectation of the editorial board of Tanka kenh/ū,

the response from the senior poets was in general positive and
recognised the freshness of Terayama's tanka which did not
emphasise the scars of the war as much as the existing older
32
poets. Instead, however, he became the object of allegations of
plagiarism. When Jiji Shinpō indicated that some of Terayama's
tanka were based on his own haiku published in haiku magazines,
Banryoku and Mugi, and that there was an exact copy of a haiku
from Nakamura Kusatao (1901-1983),33 Terayama became the
centre of controversy from both tanka and the haiku worlds. Nakai
admitted that he could have cancelled Terayama's award but he
felt that Terayama's talent was too precious to abandon and that
he should seize this opportunity to transfer tanka to the younger
generation headed by Terayama.34 The criticisms were especially
strong from the haiku world and Haiku kenkyu published a special
feature on the problems of tanka and haiku in February 1955. It was
alleged that because Terayama had been publishing his haiku in
Banryoku and Hydkai and had been familiar with the haiku
world, the influence by his senior haiku poets, such as Nakamura
Kusatao, Saitō Sanki (1900-1962) and Akimoto Fujio (1901-1977),
was obvious in his tanka.35 The following poems are typical
examples:
Himawari no moto ni jozetsu takaki kana hito o towazuba

jiko naki otoko (Terayama)

32 Ōno Nobuo et. al., 'Kadan no hankyō', TK 11:12, pp. 122-3.
33 Editorial Board, 'Kazamidori haidan [seifū]', Jiji Shinpō, 11
November 1954, p. 4.
34 Nakai Hideo, 'Kuroko no tankashi', NHS, pp. 330-1.
35 Wakatsuki Akira, 'Haiku to tanka no aida', Haiku kenkyū, 12:2,
February 1955 (hereafter HK12:2), p. 27.
How garrulous he is under the sunflower!

if he does not visit someone
he is a man without ego.
Hito o towazuba jiko naki otoko tsukimisō (Nakamura)
If he does not visit someone

he is a man without ego:

an evening primrose.
Tabakobi o yuka ni fumikeshite tachiagaru Chehofu-sai no

wakaki haiyu (Terayama)
Stamping out a cigarette light on the floor,

the young actor of Chekhov festival
stands up.
Shoku no hi o tabakobi to shitsu Chehofu-ki ( N a k a m u r a ) 3 6
I used a candle flame

to light my cigarette:
Chekhov's anniversary. 3 7
Waga tenshi naru ya mo shirenu kosuzume o uchite shden

kagitsutsu kaeru ( T e r a y a m a ) 3 8
Having shot a little sparrow

which may become my angel
I go back smelling the powder smoke.
Waga tenshi naru ya mo shirezu kansuzume
It may become
my angel:
winter sparrow.
36 Idem.
37 Translation by D. Keene. See D. Keene, Dawn To The West
Japanese Literature of the Modern Era Poetry, Drama, Criticism,
New York: Henry Holt And Company, 1984, p. 158.
38 Wakatsuki Akira, 'Haiku to tanka no aida', HK 12:2, p. 27.
39 Ibid., p. 28.
It was also pointed out that some of Terayama's tanka as in the

following examples used the same images as his own haikuA® For
example, in his tanka he writes:
Korogarishi kankanbd o ou gotoku furusato no michi o

kakete kaeramu4 *
Like following the rolling boater

I shall go home
running along the road of my hometown.
Suika uku kuraki okemizu nozoku toki kaeranu chichi ni

tsunagaru fi*
Looking into the dark tub water

where watermelon floats,
the thought relates to m y u n r e t u m e d father.
whereas in his haiku are the images:
Waga natsubd dokomade korobedomo furusato^
My summer hat
no matter how far it rolls
it is my hometown.
Momo ukabu kuraki okemizu chichi wa nashi^
The dark tub water

where peaches float:
my father is dead.
He was also accused of padding out the following tanka from his
45
haiku. The tanka:
40 Kusumoto Kenkichi, 'Aru "jūdai"', HK12:2, p. 31.

41 Terao Seiichi, 'Mogamigawa no shiranami', HK 12:2, p. 36.
42 Kusumoto Kenkichi, 'Aru "jūdai"', HK 122, p. 31.
43 Terao Seiichi, 'Mogamigawa no shiranami', HK 12:2, p. 36.
44 Kusumoto Kenkichi, 'Aru "jūdai"', HK 122, p. 31.
45 Ibid., pp. 31-2.
Kono ie mo dareka ga dbkemono naratnu tdkaki hei yori

koedashi ageha^6
In this house, too, someone must be a jester,

a swallowtail butterfly
flying out of a high fence.
The haiku:
Kono ie mo dareka ga dbke ageha takashi^
In this house, too,

someone must be a jester:
a swallowtail butterfly.
Kusumoto Kenkichi (1922-1988) was particularly alarmed at

Terayama's 'depraved poetic spirit' and his skilfulness at being
able to freely arrange both haiku and tanka. What worried him
was the fact that Terayama's haiku had been published in the
very strictly selected haiku magazine, Banryoku, that he had been
recommended in the newcomers' anthology in Haiku kenkyu, and
that his tanka topped other newcomers in the second 'Fifty Tanka
Contest'. The appearance of someone who could freely and vividly
arrange two different short poetic forms meant that both tanka and
haiku had become prosaic and had lost their respective
characteristics. Therefore, he warned Terayama not to play games
with haiku as it was not 'a formula, a password or a crossword
puzzle of sensuous words'. 48 Terayama's work was thus seen as
threatening to blur the genre boundaries, especially by the haiku
world which had established its independence from tanka.
However, Terayama's ambition was to write tanka on things which

might or might not have been actual occurrences but which he had
clearly confirmed himself. So he wanted to grasp the point of
contact of a new 'matter-of-factness' (sokubutsusei) and feelings,
and to adopt montage and counterpoint to make more appealing the
desires of his life.4' He also disclosed that when he wrote for the
'Fifty Tanka Contest' he had wanted to experiment with various
46 Ibid., p. 31.
47 Idem.
48 Ibid., pp. 32-3.
49 Terayama Shūji, 'Hi no keisō', TK 11:12, pp. 11S-9.
new things such as tanka with haiku-like motives and rhetoric but
had completely forgotten that he had quoted an expression from
Nakamura's haiku. He expressed the view that the image coming
across his mind, 'a literary dense fog or fermentation', was most
important; how to express such an image, whether it was in tanka,
haiku or free verse, was secondary. Therefore he believed that the
freshness of a theme was in the montage of his thought and the
50
beauty which had come into his mind.
Terayama also stressed the importance of adopting fiction in tanka,

a method he used when he wrote he had sold Akahata, when in
fact he had never sold one, and criticised poets for over-
emphasising their own lives in tanka which expressed only the
safer part of their reality. Therefore, in order to be faithful to
oneself, ornamentation, satire or acting could be adopted and should
not be criticised as a 'pretence'.51 He seemed to have been greatly
encouraged by Itō Sei (1905-1969) who criticised the specialist
approach of three types of poetry; haiku, tanka and free verse. Itō
also wondered why today's poets were just confined to one genre
unlike the earlier modern poets, such as Masaoka Shiki, who wrote
both haiku and tanka, and Kitahara Hakushū (1885-1942), a poet
of tanka and free verse.52 Terayama saw the view of Itō actualised
in a trend among his young generation of poets in Aren&& and in
Bokuyoshin^ as those poets were not confined to writing in one
genre.55
Terayama revealed that in the following haiku:
Chehofu-ki hdhige oshitsuke kago momo idakfi^
Chekhov's anniversary:
pressing my whiskers
I hold a basket of peaches.
50 Terayama Shūji et. al., 'Asu o hiraku uta', Tanka kenkyū, 12:1,
January 1955 (hereafter TK 12:1), pp. 68, 71.
51 Ibid., p. 74.
52 Itō Sei, 'Uta to haiku', originally published in Asahi Shinbun, 13
November 1954. See HK122, p. 33.
53 A tanka magazine formed by teenagers.
54 A haiku magazine for teenagers founded and edited by Terayama.
55 Terayama Shūji, 'Romii no daiben', HK 12:2, p. 40.
56 Ibid., p. 41.
he felt too constrained so he changed it into the following tanka:
Kago momo ni ho itaki made oshitsukete Chehofu no hi no

densha ni yuraru
Pressing against a basket of peaches

until my cheek gets hurt

I am joggled by the train on Chekhov's day.
However, in the following tanka:
Momo futoru yoru wa hisokana shoshimin no ikari o

komeshi waga mutnei no shi
At night when peaches fatten

I count the anger of quiet petty bourgeois
in my nameless poetry.
he felt that it was a bit too prolix so he tightened it up in the

following haiku:
Momo futoru yoru wa ikari o shi ni kornete
At night when peaches fatten

I count my anger
in my poetry.
Although to shorten and lengthen poems by using the same image

seemed to be taken as reprehensible in the existing tanka and haiku
world, Terayama insisted that it was extremely natural to him.^
In disclosing his intention of creating 'linked verse' (renga) in

contemporary sense, Terayama used the following tanka as
examples of his experiment:
Bansei o agete kugatsu no mori ni ireri Haine no tameni

gaku o azamuki
With discordant voice

I entered the September forest
57 Idem.
betraying my studies for Heine.
Kydchikutd sakite kasha ni kurasa ari jōzetsu no hana o

hisokani nikumu
Oleanders have bloomed

. and darkened the school building,
I secretly hate my garrulous mother.
The first part of each tanka has a seasonal word and can be haiku.
When these tanka are continued like the 'linked verse', they will
have a possibility of becoming a new genre of 'contemporary poetry'
{gendaishi) which has a theme.^8
As Terayama also aimed to create a protagonist in his tanka, he

maintained that his actual life and the life expressed in his tanka
were different, and that to condemn fiction as unfaithful must be
9
Terayama admitted that the criticism of his plagiarism was the

result of his careless use from haiku-like expression which came out
exactly the same in tanka. Despite this failure, he hoped that
someone else would complete the 'poetic beauty and composition',
by understanding the pattern he had experimented with. He
insisted that poets should not become too literal and that to revive
in tanka the visual poetic sentiment by using haiku's
characteristics and haiku-like 'matter-of-fact' concreteness as
60
rhetoric, was an important point in aesthetics.
Criticisms of Terayama's plagiarism did not subside but there were

also some attempts to evaluate his talents beyond his plagiarism.
For example, Saitō Shōji (b. 1925) stressed that Terayama's
'Chekhov Festival' showed a way to break through the deadlock
of contemporary tanka by experimentally adapting a method used
by 'new haiku' (shinkd haiku).61 Ara Masahito (1913-1979) also
hoped that Terayama, who seemed to know haiku and free verse,
would open up a new path and raise the standard of tanka to that of
58 Ibid., pp. 41-2.

59 Ibid., p. 42.
60 Ibid., pp. 42-3.
61 Saitō Shōji, 'Sōzō to sōi to', TK 12:1, p. 45.
62
'contemporary poetry'. Katō Katsumi (b. 1915) believed that
because Terayama did not experience much of the war and was
influenced more by haiku, his tanka did not have the weepy and
6
confessional nature of tanka and could boast real youthfulness. ^
Whereas Tsukamoto Kunio (b. 1922) warned that the tanka in

'Chekhov Festival' were not just fresh but were written 'to look
fresh',64 Ueda argued that Terayama's 'motif and 'method' were

more the overflow of his natural talent than his effort or
6
intention. ^ Tsukamoto especially praised Terayama's skilfulness
at honkadori (skilful adaptation of a famous poem) in which
Terayama freely manipulated the original and regenerated it more
1
freshly in his work which outshone the strict 'red-tape-like
(hanbun-jokurei-meita) rhetoric of the Shin-kokinshū.
66
Despite the obvious imitation of haiku, it seemed that Terayama

tried to adopt the sharp montage seen in contemporary haiku and
create a world open to the nuance of 'contemporary poetry' where
the personal everyday senses were erased. 'Chekhov Festival'
clearly indicated that he not only tried to introduce principles of
haiku into tanka but also used the methods of free verse and of
drama. The term 'composition' (kosei), used frequently by
Terayama, did not just mean 'montage of words' but also 'quotation
of parody' of which he was clearly aware from the beginning. His
use of parody became such a common feature in his work that those
who became used to his work expected some parody in it and tried to
find the original. By using parody, the thoroughly created
phantom of his youth became as apparent as the accurate
recognition of his reality.
The strange earthiness of 'Chekhov Festival' was decorated with

many of his pure dreams. 67 It could be said that Terayama was
62 Ara Masahito, 'Wakai kata e no kitai', TK 12:1, p. 47.

63 Katō Katsumi, 'Sakuhin geppyō', Tanka, 2:5, May 1955, pp. 138-9.
64 Tsukamoto Kunio, 'Arukadia no maō', originally published in
Terayama Shūji, Terayama Shūji zenkashū, Tokyo: Fūdosha, 1971.
See Terayama Shūji, Gendai kajin bunko--Terayama Shūji kashū,
Tokyo: Kokubunsha, 1983 (hereafter TSK), p. 176.
65 Ueda Miyoji, STS, p. 158.
66 Tsukamoto Kunio, 'Arukadia no maō', TSK, p. 176.
67 Shino Hiroshi, 'Terayama Shūji no shoki sakuhin', GST 26:12, pp. 234-
5.
trying to maintain the legitimacy of 'quotation', 'copy' and 'collage'

in tanka when such methods were not yet recognised even in the
movie world. Although Terayama must have at first used those
methods unconsciously, with increasing experience he started to use
them consciously and to think of tanka as a conscious collage of
68
words. In fact he developed those methods as his strength to the
extent that those who opposed him called him a 'habitual offender
69
of copy' and those who supported him as a 'genius of collage'.
Terayama claimed that his youthfulness needed the shackle of

70
fixed form to bring him the freedom of words, and that he went to
71
haiku meetings to 'damn words'. This suggests that he enjoyed
formulating through words the literary image in his expression. It
was obvious that no matter how much he was criticised, it was
unnatural for him to confine himself to writing in one genre, as he
had been writing haiku, tanka and free verse since his boyhood.7^
Therefore, writing in different genres to express the same image and
adapting expressions and images used by other people, were only
attempts to find the most suitable form of expression.
Ever since Terayama wrote his first tanka as a boy of twelve or

thirteen, he seemed to have established his own style, and his
world had already been completed before readers saw it.7^ He
wrote tanka as a fiction formed by the amplification and
transposition of his feelings, and was blessed with rich talent to
release the original image of himself and of his parents to create a
story. This was the reason why Terayama could be seen as piloting
the era of avant garde tanka and of the mass media despite his
beginning as a poet of youth. 74 Although his activities as a tanka
poet lasted only sixteen years until he wrote a farewell to tanka in
November 1970 for the publication of his complete collection of
68 Sasaki Yukitsuna, 'Terayama Shūji no sekai', Kokubungaku, 39:3,

February 1994, p. 7.
69 Takatori Ei, TSR, p. 68.
70 Terayama Shūji, 'Boku no nōto', TSK, p. 47.
71 Terayama Shūji, Dareka kokyō o omowazaru, Tokyo: Kadokawa
shoten, 1993, p. 91.
71 In fact, the publication of his first book was a collection of three
genres of poetry, prose and extracts from his diary all written when
he was a teenager.
73 Nakai Hideo, 'Kuroko no tankashi', NHS, pp. 354.
74 Ueda Miyoji, STS, p. l57.
tanka, together with Nakajō he is now regarded as a brilliant

pioneer.^
Because of Terayama's interest in writing any genre of poetry, his

appearance made tanka poets more aware of the possibilities of
learning from haiku and eventually also from 'contemporary
poetry'. Instead of ignoring each other's work the three poetical
genres began to recognise the importance of understanding their

respective work for the sake of their own development. His talent
was made public with 'Chekhov Festival' and the genuineness of
his talent was endorsed by the wide range of his activities in
poetry, essays, critiques, drama and movies as he continued winning
many prizes both nationally and internationally. Terayama was
thus fortunate to match the time of change in Japan when the
economy started to grow and popular culture burgeoned.
75 Nakai Hideo, 'Kuroko no tankashi', NHS, pp. 345, 351.

The Controversial Debut of Terayama Shūji As A Tanka Poet

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Japanese Studies

ISSN: 1037-1397 (Print) 1469-9338 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjst20

The controversial debut of Terayama Shūji as a

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The Controversial Debut of Terayama Shūji as a Tanka

Considering how much the tanka world was shattered by attacks on

1 . Takatori Ei, Terayama Shūji-ron, Tokyo: Shichōsha, 1992 (hereafter

, the death of the two great tanka poets, Saitō Mokichi

estimated that this contest triggered the beginning of avant garde

The choice of Nakajō as winner of the first contest was widely

6 See Hiromi Taki, 'On The History Of The Extinction Polemic In

expressed the loneliness of a boy from the northern region of

The following is an example from Terayama's winning collection of

Akahata uru ware o natsuchd koeyukeri haha wa furusato

A siimmer butterfly has flown over me

The dramatic construction of this tanka tells the story of a youth

Chehofu-sai no bira no harareshi ringo no ki kasukani

Postered with Chekhov festival leaflets

In fact, there was no Chekhov festival in 1954, and even if there

12 Editorial Board, 'Ōbo sakuhin happyō', TK 11:11, p. 26.

insignificant place like a tree. However, this tanka is lyrically

Tabako kusaki kokugo kybshi ga iu toki ni asu to iu go wa

The word tomorrow

Hitotsubu no himawari no tane makishi nomi ni kbya o

I have only sowed a single seed of sunflower

The youthful determination to start cultivating the deserted land

Ueda confidently claimed that the youthfulness of Terayama's

Although Terayama's tanka have some ponderous aspects when

18 Mizuno Masao, '<Watakushi>', T 39:12, p. 167.

Before the appearance of Terayama in 1954, the tanka

Oto tatete haka-ana fukaku chichi no hitsugi orosaruru

22 A tanka magazine originally edited by Kesshin Ichiro in October

When the coffin of my father

Himazoari wa karetsutsu hana o sasageori chichi no bohyb

A postwar motif of 'wanting the dead father back' was fully

Upon winning the contest, Terayama held that liberation from

Naki chichi no kunshd wa nao hanasazari boshi no tenraku

Still keeping the decoration of my deceased father,

Contrary to the expectation of the editorial board of Tanka kenh/ū,

Himawari no moto ni jozetsu takaki kana hito o towazuba

31 Terayama Shūji, 'Chehofu-sai', TK 11:11, p. 7.

How garrulous he is under the sunflower!

Hito o towazuba jiko naki otoko tsukimisō (Nakamura)

If he does not visit someone

he is a man without ego:

Tabakobi o yuka ni fumikeshite tachiagaru Chehofu-sai no

Stamping out a cigarette light on the floor,

Shoku no hi o tabakobi to shitsu Chehofu-ki ( N a k a m u r a ) 3 6

I used a candle flame

Waga tenshi naru ya mo shirenu kosuzume o uchite shden

Having shot a little sparrow

Waga tenshi naru ya mo shirezu kansuzume

It was also pointed out that some of Terayama's tanka as in the

Korogarishi kankanbd o ou gotoku furusato no michi o

Like following the rolling boater

Suika uku kuraki okemizu nozoku toki kaeranu chichi ni

Looking into the dark tub water

whereas in his haiku are the images:

Waga natsubd dokomade korobedomo furusato^