TOKYO — TOKYO (AP) — Shuntaro Tanikawa, who pioneered fashionable Japanese poetry, poignant however conversational in its divergence from haiku and different traditions, has died. He was 92.
Tanikawa, who translated the “Peanuts” caricature and penned the lyrics for the theme track of the animation sequence “Astro Boy,” died Nov. 13, his son Kensaku Tanikawa stated Tuesday. He stated his father died at a Tokyo hospital on account of previous age.
Shuntaro Tanikawa shocked the literary world along with his 1952 debut “Two Billion Mild Years of Solitude,” a daring have a look at the cosmic in each day life, sensual, vivid however easy in its use of on a regular basis language. Written earlier than Gabriel García Márquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” it turned a bestseller.
Tanikawa’s “Kotoba Asobi Uta,” or “Phrase Play Songs,” is a rhythmical experiment in juxtaposing phrases that sound comparable, reminiscent of “kappa,” a legendary animal and “rappa,” a horn, that makes for a joyful singsong compilation, crammed with alliterations and onomatopoeia.
“For me, the Japanese language is the bottom. Like a plant, I place my roots, drink within the vitamins of the Japanese language, sprouting leaves, flowers and bearing fruit,” he stated in a 2022 interview with The Related Press at his Tokyo dwelling.
Tanikawa explored the poetic, not solely within the repetitive music of the spoken phrase but additionally the magic hidden in little issues.
Certainly one of his works is titled, “I wished to speak to you within the kitchen in the course of the night time.”
“Prior to now, there was one thing about it being a job, being commissioned. Now, I can write as I would like,” he stated.
In each work Tanikawa tackled, together with the script for Kon Ichikawa’s “Tokyo Olympiad,” a documentary movie of the 1964 Tokyo Video games, the respectful love for the great thing about the Japanese language resonates.
He additionally translated Mom Goose, Maurice Sendak and Leo Lionni. Tanikawa has in flip been broadly translated, together with English, Chinese language and varied European languages.
A few of his works had been made into image books for youngsters, and they’re typically featured in Japanese college textbooks. He additionally included Japanese phrases derived from international origins into his poems like Coca-Cola.
In his prose poem with that title, wherein a boy is opening a Coke can, he wrote: “If, as an example, he noticed the infinite universe that began or ended on the tip of his can, he was completely unaware of it. One would possibly be capable of opine that he named each little bit of the unknown about to swallow him with all of the vocabulary he may muster, which included his future vocabulary that was but dormant in his unconscious.”
In his debut poem that catapulted him to stardom, he’s extra sparse:
“As a result of the universe goes on increasing, we’re all uneasy. With the nippiness of two billion light-years of solitude, I instantly sneezed,” is the best way the poem ends, as translated by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura.
When requested about it, Tanikawa acknowledged it felt as if another person had written it, however famous he nonetheless thought it was an excellent poem.
“Tanikawa’s poetry displays a metaphysical and quasi-religious perspective towards expertise. In easy, spare language, he sketches profound concepts and emotional truths,” in response to the Poetry Basis, a U.S. literary group.
Tanikawa was born in 1931, a son of thinker Tetsuzo Tanikawa, and started writing poetry in his teenagers, circulating with the well-known poets of that period, like Makoto Ooka and Shuji Terayama.
He stated he used to suppose poems descended like an inspiration from the heavens. However, as he grew older, he felt the poems welling up from the bottom.
In particular person, Tanikawa was pleasant and unassuming, typically studying in public with different poets. He by no means appeared to take himself too significantly however used to admit his one remorse in life was by no means ending his training, having dropped out amid stardom at a younger age.
His relative isolation from the bleakly severe scholarly poetry scene of postwar Japan doubtless helped him take his free-verse method that went on to innovate and outline Japanese up to date poetics.
Tanikawa stated he wasn’t afraid of loss of life, implying he maybe meant to put in writing a poem about that have, too.
“I’m extra interested by the place I’ll go once I die. It’s a distinct world, proper? In fact, I don’t need ache. I don’t need to die after main surgical procedure or something. I simply need to die, unexpectedly,” he stated.
He’s survived by his son, musician Kensaku Tanikawa and daughter Shino and a number of other grandchildren. Funeral providers had been held privately with household and mates. A farewell occasion in his honor is being deliberate, Kensaku Tanikawa stated.
“As they did with all of you, Shuntaro’s poems shocked and moved me, making me chuckle or shed a tear. Wasn’t all of it so enjoyable?” he stated. “His poems are with you without end.”
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Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama
