POETRY OF TOMIOKAby Tomioka Taiko Tomioka Taeko. From: Packard, William (ed.). The New York Quarterly, No. 15 Summer 1973. New York: Capital City Press, Inc.; p. 167. Ed’s Note: Tomioka was born to a working class family in Osaka, 1935, and entered Osaka Women’s College in 1957, where she majored in English literature. That same year, she also published to acclaim her first collection of poems, A Present in Return (alternate translation, Courtesy in Return). After graduation, Tomioka decided to relocate to Tokyo. She continued for a time to publish in modern poetic forms, playing freely with themes of gender and sexuality and questioning traditional morality. In 1961, she was awarded one of Japan highest prizes in poetry, the Mur? Saisei award. Despite her successes, she began experimenting in the late 1960s with fiction, finding the language of prose to be a more comfortable means of self-expression than poetry (see interview with Tomioka elsewhere on this site). Her two-year stay in Manhattan in the mid-1960s with a Japanese male artist lover was followed by a return to Osaka and a permanent shift to fiction following the publication of her first short story in 1971 (“Facing the Hills They Stand”). She followed this with a volume of short stories in 1975. Several of her stories have been translated. Tomioka was also the screenwriter for such films as Double Suicide (1969) and Gonza the Spearman (1988); both are about Edo Japan and have roots in bunraku or puppet theater. As an essayist and literary critic, Tomioka co-authored a provocative work in 1989 with two feminist writers, Danryu bunkakuron/Male School of Literature.
The first selections here of Tomioka’s poetry in English translation appeared in a 1975 anthology, edited by a Japanese scholar. The first two, “Between” and Let Me Tell You About Myself,” date from 1957 and represent her early output. Dates for the other poems are unknown, though obviously they were composed before 1971.
BETWEEN There are two sorrows to be proud of After slamming the door of the room behind me After slamming the door Of the entrance of the house behind me And out on the street visibility zero because of the rain of the rainy season
When the day begins Which way shall I go What shall I do To neither prospect Am I friend or enemy Who can I ask about This concrete question I hate war and Am no pacifist The effort only to keep my eyes open The sorrow that I can make only that effort There are two sorrows to be proud of I am with you I don't understand you Therefore I understand that you are Therefore I understand that I am The sorrow that I do not understand you The sorrow that you are what you are LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MYSELF Because both Dad and Mom Even the old midwife In fact every single predictor Bet that I'd be a boy I tore out of the placenta determinedly a girl Then Because everybody regretted it I became a boy Then Because everybody praised it I became a girl Then Because everybody bullied me I became a boy When I came of age Because my sweetheart was a boy I had to be a girl Then Because everybody except my sweetheart Talked about how I became a girl I became a boy to everybody Except to my sweetheart Because I regretted being special to my sweetheart I became a boy Then because he said he wouldn't sleep with me I became a girl Meanwhile several centuries came to pass This time The poor caused a bloody revolution And were being bossed around by a slice of bread Therefore I became a medieval church Saying love is the thing I visited back alleys Distributed old clothes and lumps of bread Meanwhile several centuries came to pass This time God's land had come And the rich and poor were great friends So I hopped on a private helicopter And scattered agitation leaflets Meanwhile several centuries came to pass This time The bloody revolutionaries Were kneeling before a rusted cross I saw a fire of order in the disorder So in the pub and in the den Byron Musset Villon Baudelaire Hemingway girls in black pants And I played cards drank Talked nostalgically About things like the libertines peculiar to the Country in the East called Japan And mainly Made fun of things like Simultaneity of love Because both Dad and Mom Even the old midwife In fact everybody said I was a child prodigy I was a cretin Because everybody said I was a fool I became an intellectual and set up a residence somewhere behind I didn't know what to do with my energy When the rumor became widespread That I was an intellectual somewhere behind I began to walk out in the front The walk I walked Was the same as my Dad and Mom's I the pervert was confused Was tormented for my reputation was at stake And so I became a good solid girl I became a boy to my sweetheart And wouldn't allow him to complain LIVING TOGETHER You'll make tea I'll make toast While we do things like this Maybe early in the evening A friend may notice the rising moon dyed scarlet And maybe feel like visiting us But that will be the last time he comes We'll shut all the doors lock them Make tea; make toast Talk as usual about how Sooner or later There will be a time you bury me I bury you in the garden And go out as usual to hunt for food There will be a time you bury me Or I bury you in the garden The one left sipping tea Then for the first time one will refuse fiction Your freedom too Was no better than a fool's story WHAT COLOR WAS THE SKY For example you see this: on your way to buy morning bread a young man leaning against a sunny fence was taking off his kimono. What did you say in a voice like French? What did you say in the animal language? The wet cough of a large-headed woman in men's wooden clogs frightened you so much you forgot your greetings. And you turned back looking like a plant picking up the overturned syllables. Perhaps you didn't have to die on your way back because of that. HOW ARE YOU How shall I put it? It isn't that you do it with grace. It's very simple in fact, quite exhilarating except you better clip your nails shorter. Everyone likes you the moment you are seen. There isn't an exception, you are liked by everyone. You are trusted, no matter what you do you make them feel good. At your age you no longer have anyone to betray, anyone to rebel against, you can't even dupe yourself. You have nothing to talk about, you can spend your whole day plucking the nails of the cat. But today too you've written to someone. Today too you've washed your hands and feet. Today too you put sugar in the coffee. Today too you awoke in the morning. Today too you left your bed. Ah yes and today too you had an apple for a snack. And dangling your Michaelangelo phallus and angel breasts you walked about a bit and for a night snack you sipped oyster stew. Like a westerner you tried to roar. Like a Chinaman you tried to meditate. For all this you were there after taking off your meaning and your coat, a tooth pick stuck in your mouth. At any time indeed you'll be there drinking gin eating locusts' legs. PLEASE SAY SOMETHING To a man eating a pear you pose a question like why the hell he's turning on and off the light only when you're sitting like an insect on a chair in the dark of an autumn house when revenge and such shit doesn't count. Which reminds us doesn't it how a nine year old girl took off her kimono yesterday better than her mom does. Then remember the insect like a golden green grass ball creeping up the outstretched arm. Oh I know all of these stories sound too good to believe right. Have a pancake or something for a night snack and give it good thought OK? MARRY ME PLEASE I didn't go anywhere but cut down all the trees in the backyard and weeded all the grass around them. They bore children, the children went to war and when they returned the children bore children. The children flood the land and females can only take hot baths. It will soon be over. Perhaps grass will begin to grow. Man will die among the grass. CHAIRS I greeted the human being. At any time I have nothing to say. I remember seeing a photo of a beach where many round wicker chairs are arranged. Inside those shell-like chairs I'll greet again. About the chairs there was nothing more to be said. You will put your hand where the space ends and look around. Our short trips have no sound at any time. Either one of us may weep in the air. The chairs are always put back to back. How light we are. Don't hug me so intimately will you. THE GIRLFRIEND My neighbor The mistress recites a sutra A little past noon I saw an animal like a donkey Pass below the window I saw it through the opening in the curtains Always through the opening in the curtains A woman comes to see me But today she hasn't come yet Wearing a georgette Annamese dress The line of her hip attractive to men She promised to come Today she hasn't come yet Today she may have died The other day When I traveled with her At a country antique shop She wanted an old wood engraving From Germany or some such place At a country inn For the first time with my fingers I could mess up The mass of her hair Like Brigitte Bardot's We danced For a long time Scarlet cheek to cheek We danced a Viennese waltz Her transparency Her optimistic poesy Occasionally spills like beads of sweat Which I would take for tears She does not come today Like my neighbor the mistress Though still midday I pray aloud She did not promise That she would not come You are gone You who are gone GREETINGS Because you were embarrassed you were about to talk. Your father has left to die and your mother will die on her way home. Take me some place. Lately you have often failed to be an old man. So you imitated a Chinese poet and said simply: I regret I couldn't drink as much as I wanted. .........................
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