Takashi Nogami: From "Utakai Hajime" to Winning the "Chikushi Kadan Award"

2019/04/12

Unable to abandon the dream of literature taught to me by Mr. Koichi Saito, who was a Japanese language teacher at Keio Futsubu School, I wrote original plays for Gekidan Kai while working at Kirin Brewery, and staged over 10 productions at venues such as Shibuya Jean-Jean.

During this time, I received the 10th Okinawa City Drama Award.

After retiring, I had more time, so I decided to try my hand at tanka and haiku in addition to plays. I was invited to the Utakai Hajime for a work that was almost my debut: "The world is called summer, filled with the blue, dripping light on Mount Miwa."

Being encouraged by His Majesty, I had no choice but to take tanka and haiku seriously.

Most tanka and haiku are created by people belonging to organizations called "kessha" (societies), which serve as a "place." I also belong to tanka and haiku societies, but I rather use contributing to newspaper poetry columns as my "place" for creation.

In newspaper poetry columns, the decision to publish is determined by the selector's preference, regardless of the author's intent (each selector receives as many as 1,000 works), so many people view contributing negatively.

However, I feel that rather than expression in the introverted "place" of a society, it is only by appearing in newspapers and magazines and being exposed to many people's eyes that it has meaning.

From my experience writing plays, no matter how good a piece you finish, it has no value unless a theater company picks it up, puts it on stage, and has it seen by an unspecified large audience.

In this way, I accumulated about 500 tanka poems published in newspapers, so I selected over 330 of them and published the poetry collection "Replica Whale."

I only printed a small number of copies intended for friends and acquaintances to read, but it happened to catch the eye of a leading figure in the poetry world, and I was nominated for the "15th Chikushi Kadan Award," which targets the first poetry collections by authors aged 60 and over.

Since many people start tanka and haiku after passing the age of 60 and leaving work or caregiving, the existence of such an award is appreciated.

Incidentally, among my friends in the Mita-kai, there were some who wanted to do haiku upon retirement but felt hesitant about joining a society where Keio alumni already hold significant influence. So, I have been leading a group for enjoying haiku called "Shichio-kai." There are about 20 members. It has been seven years since we started enjoying senior haiku poet Kenkichi Kusumoto's philosophy that "haiku is serious play." Some members have even begun to win awards.