Simple Chaos: Selected Poems of Yukio Tsuji

By Yukio Tsuji

Yukio Tsuji (1939-2000), born in Asakusa, Tokyo, graduated from the French Department of Meiji University and took the pen name 'kamotsusen' (cargo ship) as a haiku poet. His poems have often been classified as 'light verse', light-hearted in essence; some people inevitably criticized him for his lack of seriousness and of a grand style. Since his poems are structurally beautiful, their architectural forms are, needless to say, the product of much trial and error as he struggled for 'perfect' compositions. In the English-speaking world Tsuji's poems, even though few in number, were included in the audio CD called Masters of Modern Japanese Poetry (Watch Word) and on the website Poetry International Web (Japan).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Level 4 Press, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781933769653

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Preface

Yukio Tsuji (1939-2000), born in Asakusa, Tokyo, graduated from the French Department of Meiji University and took the pen name ‘kamotsusen’ (cargo ship) as a haiku poet. His poems have often been classified as ‘light verse’, light-hearted in essence; some people inevitably criticized him for his lack of seriousness and of a grand style. Since his poems are structurally beautiful, their architectural forms are, needless to say, the product of much trial and error as he struggled for ‘perfect’ compositions. In the English-speaking world Tsuji’s poems, even though few in number, were included in the audio CD called Masters of Modern Japanese Poetry (Watch Word) and on the website Poetry International Web (Japan). The following essay of his own composition is the best guide to the world of Yukio Tsuji himself. The title A Hint From Borges is taken from his collection Simple Chaos (1991).

A Hint From Borges

The line God gives the first line of poetry has been attributed to poet Ryuichi Tamura. I suppose I read it in some essay by or on Valéry, but my sloth these days keeps me from remembering when and where.

God gives the first line of poetry…. Then what about the second line, the third, etc.? Needless to say, poets write lines by dint of their talent and experiences, and by their own secret spells. Do you understand what I mean? Then so much for today. But I’ll tell you a bit more. People call this God, by another name, the Muse who imparts imagination to poets. And Borges states in a preface to his poetry collection The Profound Rose that we should understand the word Muse as what the Hebrews or Milton called the ‘Holy Ghost’ and what our meager myth calls ‘subconsciousness’. When it comes to ‘God’, ‘inspiration’, ‘Muse’ or ‘Holy Ghost’, all appear to belong to the past and to be unrelated to us. But talking about ‘subconsciousness’, the word seems to take on a touch of real life. Poetry comes into being in the territory of subconsciousness or unconsciousness. It somehow comes out as a cluster of words, detonated by something. But this explanation of poetry in the making simply includes the modern terminology ‘subconscious’ and is almost the same as the theory of inspiration by the Muse. When we talk about ‘detonated by something’, what is meant by ‘something’?

In contrast to the figure of a passive poet who has been waiting for the first line without knowing when it’ll come, Borges rather speaks of the idea of a poet who writes poetry as the workings of intellect. Here he refers to one American poet, Edgar Allan Poe. (Up to this point I’ve developed and summarized my argument on the basis of the preface to the book The Profound Rose/The Iron Coin (Kokusho-kanko-kai Publishing House). But now I’ll