Avant-Garde Tanka — Tsukamoto Kunio, Terayama Shūji, Okai Takashi, and the Experiments of Postwar Shōwa

What is “Avant-Garde Tanka”?

Avant-garde tanka (zenei tanka) is an experimental movement in tanka that arose in the Shōwa 20s to 30s (approximately 1945-1965). Its leaders, represented by three people — Tsukamoto Kunio, Terayama Shūji, and Okai Takashi — attempted difficult, symbolic, urban, and experimental tanka against the background of the postwar experience of defeat and the reaction against the conservative shasei tanka of the Araragi school.

The three avant-garde poets did not form a single school; each took his own road. But bound by the shared consciousness of “a new postwar tanka,” they built the turning point of modern tanka.

Background of Avant-Garde Tanka

The Shock of Defeat (1945)

The defeat in the Pacific War shook Japanese worldviews and values at their base. The Man’yō-style nationalism tanka written by Mokichi and others of the Araragi school during the war was denied after the defeat. The 100-year-old common sense of “Man’yō = simple and strong = the Japanese heart” itself was questioned.

The Stagnation of the Araragi School

After the war the Araragi school continued, but with Mokichi in his late years and Tsuchiya Bunmei’s elder statesmanship, generational turnover did not progress. For young poets, the Araragi shasei and Man’yō style already felt old-fashioned.

The Influence of Western Modernism

After the war, Western modernist literature (Joyce, Proust, Eliot) was introduced in earnest. In tanka too, the desire grew for “a contemporary experimental poetry, not the Japanese tradition.”

The “Abolition of Tanka” Debate

In 1946 Kuwabara Takeo, in his “Daini-geijutsu-ron” (Theory of a Second Art), denigrated haiku as a “second art” (see the haiku 400 Years series for details). Tanka was likewise seen as facing the crisis of being regarded as “an outdated form.” Against this, the need arose to modernize and experimentalize tanka.

Tsukamoto Kunio (1920-2005) — The Poet of Difficult Symbols

Tsukamoto Kunio is the core of the avant-garde. The poet who gave the greatest shock to Shōwa-era Japanese tanka.

Life

• August 7, 1920, born in Gokashō-chō, Kanzaki District, Shiga Prefecture (now Higashiōmi City)
• Grew up as the child of a merchant house
• 1951, published his first tanka collection Suisō Monogatari (Story of Water Burial) at 31 — the beginning of avant-garde tanka
• 1978, professor at Osaka University of Arts
• June 9, 2005, died at 84

Representative Poem 1: A Song of Revolution (Suisō Monogatari, 1951)

“Uma wo arawaba / uma no tamashii / sayuru made / hito kohaba / hito ayamuru kokoro”

• uma wo arawaba, uma no tamashii sayuru made — if you wash a horse, do it until the horse’s soul is clear
• hito kohaba, hito ayamuru kokoro — if you love a person, do it with a heart that could kill

A representative avant-garde poem that brings extreme passion into tanka. The parallel and analogy of “washing a horse” and “loving a person” exceeds the imagination of ordinary tanka. A representative of Tsukamoto’s difficult, symbolic style.

Representative Poem 2: The Destruction of 5-7-5-7-7 (Nihonjin Reika, 1958)

“Nihon dasshutsu shitashi / kōtei penguin mo / kōtei penguin shiiku-gakari mo”

• I want to escape from Japan — the emperor penguin too, and the emperor penguin’s keeper too

Greatly breaking the fixed form of tanka, he composes the everyday in modern colloquial. He boldly uses loanwords and modern words such as “emperor penguin” and “keeper.” The fixed form, the subject, and the diction are all the opposite of the Araragi school.

Representative Poem 3: Death and Beauty (Sōshoku Gakku, 1956)

“Basha yobiyosete / fuyu no hanataba / tsumite sutemu / seinen no me no / geijutsu no naka”

Call a carriage; let us load winter bouquets and throw them away. In the art of a young man’s eye. Meaningless, fantastical, symbolic. The extreme of Tsukamoto’s difficulty. Even from modern eyes the interpretation is not fixed, but this is the very stance of avant-garde tanka.

Tsukamoto’s Style

• Difficult, symbolic — the meaning cannot be caught at one reading
• Bold use of loanwords and modern words
• Preserving the fixed form while making the content radical
• Mixing katakana, loanwords, symbols (numbers)
• Clearly conscious of a “tanka revolution”

Tsukamoto’s strategy: “Preserve the style of the poem while making the content avant-garde.” This is the common stance shared with Terayama and Okai.

Terayama Shūji (1935-1983) — Fusion of Theater and Tanka

Terayama Shūji is another center of avant-garde tanka. Not stopping at tanka, he expanded into theater (Tenjō Sajiki), film, criticism, and poetry as a prodigy of postwar Japanese culture.

Life

• December 10, 1935, born in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture
• Lost his father in childhood; his mother worked at the US military base in Misawa, Aomori
• Waseda University Faculty of Education (dropout)
• 1954 (age 19), won the Tanka Research Newcomer Prize, debuted in the tanka world
• 1958, published his first collection Sora ni wa Hon
• 1967, founded the theater experiment laboratory “Tenjō Sajiki”
• May 4, 1983, died at 47 (cirrhosis)

Representative Poem 1: Mother and Son (Sora ni wa Hon, 1958)

“Matchi suru / tsukanoma umi ni / kiri fukashi / mi sutsuru hodo no / sokoku wa ari ya”

• matchi suru tsukanoma umi ni kiri fukashi — in the moment of striking a match, mist is thick on the sea
• mi sutsuru hodo no sokoku wa ari ya — is there a homeland worth throwing away one’s life for?

A postwar Japanese question, condensed into the instant flash of a match and the mist of the sea. “Mi sutsuru hodo no sokoku wa ari ya” is a phrase that circulated as representing the feelings of youth under postwar democracy.

Representative Poem 2: Recollection of Childhood (Sora ni wa Hon)

“Ware ni gogatsu wo / kure yo / kakyō wa gogatsu / haha nakite / naki-shi midaruru / haha kou ya”

• ware ni gogatsu wo kure yo — give me the month of May
• kakyō wa gogatsu, haha nakite — my hometown is May, my mother was weeping
• naki-shi midaruru haha kou ya — do I love the mother whose weeping was disordered?

Terayama recalls his hometown (Aomori) and mother in an irregular fixed form. The imperative “kure yo” and the chaos of “midaruru” are in the avant-garde style.

Representative Poem 3: Death and Youth (Den’en ni Shisu, 1965)

“Hate shinaku / fukaki mushikui / no nasu futatsu / kaware te inaka ni / kaeri yuku ware”

• hate shinaku fukaki mushikui — endlessly deep worm-eating
• no nasu futatsu — of eggplants, two of them
• kaware te inaka ni kaeri yuku ware — bought, I return to the countryside

A self-recognition in which “worm-eaten eggplants = myself.” The figure of a youth defeated in the city and returning to the countryside is overlaid on the eggplants. The center of Terayama’s representative collection Den’en ni Shisu.

Terayama’s Style

• Subjects of youth, hometown, and mother at the center
• Irregular fixed form (boldly breaking 5-7-5-7-7)
• Fusion of tanka with other arts (theater, film)
• The mind of boys and young men, expressed subjectively

As a poet Terayama withdrew from tanka after only about 10 years and moved his activity to theater. But he holds a permanent place in tanka history as the spokesman for postwar youth.

Okai Takashi (1928-2020) — Theory and Composition Together

Okai Takashi is another center of avant-garde tanka. Together with Tsukamoto and Terayama, of the three he was active for the longest (dying at 92). Living as a doctor (cardiologist), he devoted his life to tanka.

Life

• January 5, 1928, born in Nagoya
• Keiō University Faculty of Medicine
• 1955, won the Tanka Research Newcomer Prize
• 1957, published his first collection Seishō
• 1960s, a central figure of avant-garde tanka alongside Tsukamoto and Terayama
• 1970-2020, active as doctor, poet, and critic
• July 10, 2020, died at 92

Representative Poem 1: The Abstraction of Love (Seishō, 1957)

“Zenmai no / yō naru mono wo / maki ni keri / shiseru kotoba ni / inochi no oto su”

• zenmai no yō naru mono — something like a spring / royal fern (both meanings)
• maki ni keri — I sowed / wound it
• shiseru kotoba ni, inochi no oto su — in dead words, there is the sound of life

The layered meaning of “zenmai” (plant and mechanism), and the paradox of “sound of life in dead words” — Okai’s abstract and symbolic style.

Representative Poem 2: The Introspection of a Doctor (Tochi yo, Itami wo Oe, 1961)

“Jitto shite ita wake dewa nai noni / nemuri ni ochiru / hakui no otoko no / hirō wa dore hodo”

Though he wasn’t sitting still, he falls into sleep — how much is the fatigue of a man in a white coat (=doctor=himself)? He brings his everyday life as a doctor into tanka. Okai’s characteristic intellectual introspection.

Representative Poem 3: A Consciousness of Tanka Revolution

“Zettai ni / tanka wo uta no hanazono ni / kaesanu ishi / waga mune ni are”

• Let there be in my heart the will absolutely not to return tanka to the (traditional) flower-garden of poetry

A poem that can be called a declaration of avant-garde tanka. It expresses the will to write tanka on postwar reality, denying the subjects (four seasons, love, refinement) of the Heian-onward traditional tanka called “the flower-garden of poetry.”

Okai’s Style and Theory

• Symbolic, abstract style (close to Tsukamoto’s)
• Contains medical introspection
• Activity as a theorist — many critical essays such as Shi to Genjitsu, Tanka no Kanōsei
• A theoretical pillar of postwar tanka

Okai lived to 92 and also took up the role of evaluating and raising the 21st-century young poets (Homura Hiroshi, Kinoshita Tatsuya). As a historical mediator of avant-garde tanka, he built a bridge to modern tanka.

Comparison of the Three

Element	Tsukamoto Kunio	Terayama Shūji	Okai Takashi
Life	1920-2005	1935-1983	1928-2020
Occupation	Merchant → professor	Theater artist, writer	Doctor
Subject	Symbol, beauty	Youth, hometown	Introspection, city
Style	Difficult	Theatrical	Abstract
Active period	60 years	20 years	65 years
Beside tanka	Poetry, novels	Theater, film, poetry	Medicine, criticism

Three, each on a different road, bound by the shared consciousness of “avant-garde tanka.” This supported the diversity of Japanese tanka in the second half of the 20th century.

Techniques of Avant-Garde Tanka

1. Symbol and Metaphor

The opposite of Araragi’s “jissō kannyū (write what you see).” A concrete object is used as a symbol. Horse = passion, eggplant = self, spring/fern = in-between of life and machine, and so on.

2. Destruction of the Fixed Form

While keeping 5-7-5-7-7, the syllable count is subtly shifted. “Nihon dasshutsu shitashi / kōtei penguin mo / kōtei penguin shiiku-gakari mo” is an irregular 8-9-6-11-9.

3. Loanwords and Katakana

“Match,” “emperor penguin,” “white coat” — loanwords and modern words never seen in Heian-onward waka are used aggressively.

4. Abstraction

A leap from concrete scene to abstract idea. The influence of Western modernist poetry.

5. Expansion of Subjects

Not limited to love and nature — politics, society, city, medicine, theater — all modern subjects are brought into tanka.

Criticism and Evaluation of Avant-Garde Tanka

Criticism

• Too difficult, does not reach readers
• Broke the tradition of tanka
• Runs too much to technique, no feeling

These criticisms came especially from Araragi and traditional poets.

Evaluation

• Rescued tanka from being an “outdated form”
• Gave tanka the power to sing of postwar Japanese reality
• Became the starting point of modern tanka
• Opened the way to 21st-century colloquial tanka

From today’s viewpoint, avant-garde tanka is evaluated as having succeeded as a strategy for the survival of tanka.

The Legacy of Avant-Garde Tanka

Late-Shōwa Women Poets

The next generation influenced by avant-garde tanka:

• Kuzuhara Taeko (1907-1985) — a fantastical woman poet
• Baba Akiko (1928-) — a woman poet of Okai’s generation
• Yamanaka Chieko (1925-2006) — a symbolic style

After the 1980s

In 1987, with Tawara Machi’s Sarada Kinenbi, colloquial tanka exploded in popularity. This is the popularization of the avant-garde tanka legacy (next article).

Today (21st Century)

The colloquial tanka of Homura Hiroshi (1962-), Kinoshita Tatsuya (1988-), Okano Daishi (1980-) inherit the irregularity, modern language, and subject-expansion of avant-garde tanka.

The Significance of Avant-Garde Tanka

1. Rescue of Postwar Tanka

Amid the stagnation of the Araragi school and the postwar crisis of the “tanka abolition” debate, avant-garde tanka rescued tanka as “a modern poetic form.”

2. Starting Point of Modern Tanka

The modern colloquial tanka of Homura and others could not exist without avant-garde tanka. The idea of “singing of the modern in tanka” was established by Tsukamoto, Terayama, and Okai.

3. A Place for Multi-Talent

Like Terayama, tanka → theater → film → criticism — it became a place where multi-talent could grow. Tanka, as a “genre of literature,” connected to comprehensive art.

4. Liberation of Women Poets

After avant-garde tanka, it prepared the ground on which women poets (Kuzuhara Taeko, Baba Akiko, Kōno Yūko, Tawara Machi) became the mainstream.

From This Article to the Next

In May 1987, Tawara Machi (1962-) published her first tanka collection Sarada Kinenbi, a huge hit of 2.8 million copies. Her colloquial tanka “Kono aji ga / ii ne to kimi ga / itta kara / shichigatsu muika wa / sarada kinenbi” (Because you said “This tastes good,” July 6 is Salad Anniversary) brought tanka once again to ordinary Japanese people. The next article traces Tawara Machi, who, while inheriting the legacy of avant-garde tanka, popularized tanka in a direction that was easy to understand and familiar.