Nakamura Kusatao

Nakamura Kusatao ( Japanese 中 村 草 田 男 ; * July 27, 1901 in Xiamen ; † August 5, 1983 in Tōkyō ), actually Nakamura Seiichirō ( 中 村 清 一郎 ), was a Japanese haiku poet.

Life

Nakamura Kusatao was born in Xiamen , Fujian Province , China, as the eldest son of the Japanese consul in China, Nakamura Osamu ( 中 村 修 ). In 1904, when Kusatao was four years old, he and his mother moved to Masaki , Iyo County , Ehime Prefecture , the home of the Nakamura family. Two years later there was a move to Matsuyama . The greater part of the elementary school time spent Kusatao in Tōkyō , where he attended the Seinan Elementary School in Minato district .

To attend middle school he returned to Matsuyama again and attended Matsuyama Middle School and Matsuyama High School. After graduating in 1925, he began studying German literature at the philosophical faculty of the Imperial University of Tōkyō . In 1929 he was trained in haiku poetry under Takahama Kyoshi and became a member of the university's haiku community. On the recommendation of Mizuhara Shūōshis , he published his poems in the haiku magazine Hototogisu . During his student days he went to his old elementary school for a long time and wrote the famous poem Yuki to Meiji ( 雪 と 明治 , English "Snow and the Meiji Period"), which is currently on a memorial stone at the Seinan Elementary School .

In 1933 he graduated and became a professor at the Faculty of Politics and Economics at Seikei University , where he taught until his retirement in 1967. Furthermore, he was accepted into the circle of the Hototogisu magazine in 1933 and was active in its column for poems without a fixed topic ( 雑 詠 , Zatsuei ).

In 1936 he published his first haiku compilation, Chōshi ( 長子 , "the oldest child"), the 1939 the second compilation, Hi no tori ( 火 の 鳥 , "firebird"), and in 1941 the third compilation, Banryoku ( 萬 緑 , “Omnipresent green”), followed.

In 1944 he stopped publishing haiku in Hototogisu out of dissatisfaction with the magazine and in 1946 founded his own haiku magazine, which he also called Banryoku . In 1953 his fifth haiku compilation, Ginga izen ( 銀河 依然 , "still the Milky Way") came out. In 1959 he took on the task of selecting haiku for the Asahi newspaper . In 1967 his seventh haiku compilation, Biden ( 美 田 , "beautiful / fertile rice field") appeared.

On August 5, 1983, Nakamura Kusatao died of acute pneumonia. The day before his death he was baptized and took the baptismal name Johannes Maria Vianney Nakamura Seiichirō ( ヨ ハ ネ ・ マ リ ア ・ ヴ ィ ア ン ネ ・ 中 村 清 一郎 , after Jean-Marie Vianney ). His resting place is in Itsukaichi Cemetery in Akiruno , Tōkyō .

Works

Haiku compilations

• Chōshi ( 長子 ). Sarashoten, Tōkyō 1936. (338 Haiku.)
• Hi no tori ( 火 の 鳥 ). Ryūseikaku, Tōkyō 1939. (553 Haiku.)
• Banryoku ( 萬 緑 ). Kōchō Shorin, Tōkyō 1941. (232 Haiku.)
• Koshikata yukue ( 來 し 方 行 方 ). Jibundō, Tōkyō 1947. (715 Haiku.)
• Ginga izen ( 銀河 依然 ). Mizuzu Shobō, Tōkyō 1953. (788 haiku plus 13 older haiku.)
• Bokyōkō ( 母 郷 行 ). Mizuzu Shobō, Tōkyō 1956. (653 Haiku.)
• Biden ( 美 田 ). Mizuzu Shobō, Tōkyō 1967. (239 Haiku.)
• Togi ( 時機 ). Mizuzu Shobō, Tōkyō 1980. (439 haiku from the years around 1960 plus another 37 haiku from 1972.)

swell

• Kanaoka, Shōji (Ed.): Shinteikokugosōran . 3rd edition Kyōtoshobō, Kyōto 2004.

Web links

• Entry in the haiku poetry dictionary

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Nakamura is the family name, Kusatao the first name.