Shuntaro Tanikawa used to think poems descended like an inspiration from the heavens. As he grew older — he is now 90 — Tanikawa sees poems as welling up from the ground.
Shuntaro Tanikawa, a Japanese poet and translator, reads his poem during an interview with The Associated Press in Tokyo May 25, 2022. Tanikawa used to think poems descended from above like an inspiration from the heavens. As he grew older, and he is now 90, Tanikawa sees poems as welling up from the ground. . As he grew older — he is now 90 — Tanikawa sees poems as welling up from the ground.
Shelves were overflowing with books. His collection of ancient bronze animal figurines stand in neat rows in a glass box next to stacks of his favorite classical music CDs. Tanikawa is also a reputed translator, having translated Charles Schulz’ “Peanuts” comic strip into Japanese since the 1970s. He demonstrated his ear for the poetic in the colloquial with finesse, choosing “yare yare” for “good grief,” transcending the lifestyle differences of East and West in the universal world of children and animals.Tanikawa has translated many others' works, including Mother Goose, as well as Maurice Sendak and Leo Lionni.
He has already written dozens of poems to go with the score. They are all short, more abstracted than his past work, conjuring surreal images like staircases descending to nowhere, or a caterpillar dancing uncontrollably. One repeats the phrase “kappa,” a mythical monster, as in: “kappa kapparatta,” which translates to “the kappa took off with something” — a “rappa,” a “trumpet,” as it turns out in a later line. The poetry is, both visually and aurally, a sheer celebration of the Japanese language.“For me, the Japanese language is the ground. Like a plant, I place my roots, drink in the nutrients of the Japanese language, sprouting leaves, flowers and bearing fruit,” he said.
He usually works at his huge desk in a spacious study, which has a window that lets in the breeze and a fuzzy ray of light. It looks out into a yard with flowers. On the wall hangs a sepia-toned portrait of his mother with his father, Tetsuzo Tanikawa, a philosopher.
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