I don’t know if I will post regularly but I think that I will use this topic to share poems, even if few people are responding I just like sharing them and writing these posts, I was wondering if I should make a new topic with the title “Japanese Poetry Reading Club” or something like that… but for the moment I will just stay here.
I was reading a passage of How to Read a Japanese Poem from Steven D. Carter (really great book, I recommend it) where he was explaining the double meaning of this hokku from the Sarumino (猿蓑) :
物の音
一人たおるる
案山子かな
A sound, over there !
He has fallen all alone…
…the scarecrow
(I guess the kanji for たおるる is 倒るる. I took some freedom with “over there” and the punctuation.)
Mr. Carter explains in his book that despite the funny aspect of the poem it has a more deep and sad meaning, the loneliness of the wanderer hearing a sound and thinking it’s another person coming his way, only to be disappointed at the sight of the scarecrow (by the way I just realised why Kakashi-sensei in Naruto was named like that…).
That’s really one of the reasons that make me love japanese poetry, saying a lot in a few words and being implicit and subtle instead of explaining everything.
The pain of loneliness and disappointed hope is really a sour one, I guess the modern human has the same feeling when his phone rings and that he quickly grabs it with the anticipation of a message from a friend, only to see it’s just some random app notification.