The Poems of  Bokusui  Wakayama,  Transl at i ons
著者Dunne Gregory,  Takano Goro
j ournal  orpubl i cat i on t i t l e
Comparat i ve cul t ure,  t he j ournal  of  Mi yazakiI nt ernat i onal  Col l ege
vol ume22
page range126- 132
year2017
URLht t p: //i d. ni i . ac. j p/1106/00000707/
The Poems of Bokusui Wakayama, Translations 
Gregory Dunne & Goro Takano (Saga University) 
�� ��, Wakayama Bokusui, (1885–1928) was a modern Japanese tanka poet from 
Miyazaki Prefecture in southern Kyushu. He was active at the beginning of the 20th 
century, during the tanka revival started by Yosano Tekkan (1873 -1935), who founded 
the the literary magazine Myoji (Bright Star) in Tokyo in 1900 as a means, in part, 
towards infusing greater energy and freshness into the traditional form. Between 1908 
and 1912, Bokusui’s poems gained popularity through publication in Myoji. Like other 
members of the Myoji group, Bokusui’s poems, according to the Japanese translator and 
literary scholar Donald Keene, were “filled with romantic expressions of grief and 
longing” but they also possessed something quite distinctive: “a vitality and a feeling for 
nature that set his work apart.” Keene suspects this quality of Bokusui’s poetry may be 
attributed to Bokusui’s country origins – he was born and raised in rural Miyazaki 
Prefecture. Bokusi traveled widely throughout Japan and Korea during his lifetime, 
composing a great many tanka along the way. He greatly enjoyed sake and this most 
likely contributed to his early death at forty-three years of age of liver illness. 
01: �������������������������� 
A lone white bird stays  in the air without fading  into the blueness of sky or sea and I can’t help wondering how profound its sorrow must be 
02: ������������������������������ 
An eternally unsolved mysterious being is still living and moving; I cannot help thinking so whenever I see myself 
03: ��
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Whenever I hear a story about an eyeless fish living in the deep sea, I’m desperately sick for the sight of it, ah, my eyeless fish  
04: ����������������������������� 
A tiny autumn flower blooming right beside me whispers quietly: “O, whatever has perished returns everlastingly to us!” 
05: �������������������������� 
At the bottom of a cloud-filled, early-summer day  the cherry blossoms  are at their best and you, wasted and weakened, have met your death 
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At a train station awakening with paleness at dawn in June almost like a vestal girl a steam locomotive stirs 
     07: ������
� ����������������������         How sorrowful it appears    the mountain of my home town,    Mount Osuzu, a haze    hovering about it even     on this clearest autumn day       08: �����������������������         All the way from a brewer    in the remote Itami village    it reaches me at last    the grand brand “White Snow,”    the gem of the Tsu region      (Note: “The Itami village” in “The Tsu region” is now called the Itami city in Hyogo Prefecture)       
09: ���������������������������         A surprise to me –    the large hands and strong grip    of everyone I meet    here as I finally reach     northernmost Aomori     10: ����������������������������         How should I     answer if someone asks    why I am so    out of my mind with it –    this sake's exquisite flavor      11: ����������
� �����������������         Against the ocean wind    a straight line of birds float    until, suddenly,    one of them begins to stray    and then they all go straying     
12: ���������������������������� 
Condensed behind the luxuriant leaves of pine trees the winter  sunshine oozes  into a deepening purple 
13: ���������������������������� 
Even after the dream  of my dearest mother broiling a sweetfish alone,  I still see her from behind, so clearly 