WHR August 2020

ONE HUNDRED HAIJIN AFTER SHIKI

Susumu Takiguchi

Part Nine

Ozaki Hosai (1885-1926)

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) famously predicted that haiku could become extinct by the end of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). How wrong he was! And how delighted we are that he was wrong, without being unkind to him! This is indeed a cause for celebration.

One way of celebrating it could be to choose at random one hundred Japanese haiku poets who have helped to prove him wrong. If we chose one hundred best the case would be strong. But if we chose randomly, and not necessarily the best, one hundred from among, say, about five hundred who have been leading figures in the modern history of haiku in Japan, the case would be even stronger.

With this in mind, I would like to serialise my narratives in World Haiku Review about the one hundred Japanese haijin whom I shall choose at random and talk about. There is no particular reason why the number should be one hundred. It could be two hundred or fifty. Just over one hundred years have passed since the end of the Meiji Era, and a little bit longer since Shiki died. So, the number one hundred would not be bad. To write about more than one hundred haijin could be exhausting. If the number was fifty, the endeavour could be unsatisfactory and frustrating as more would surely be desired to be introduced. One thing which is certain is that it is not really intended to follow the fashion to use the number one hundred in haiku books, originally emanating from the ancient waka anthology Hyaku-Nin-Isshu (one poem each by one hundred poets). Being a heso-magari (contrarian) I would in fact have liked to avoid this cliché.

A Damaged Man and Haiku Genius

Ozaki (surname) Hosai (given name)*

20 January 1885 ~ 7 April 1926

*Following the academic convention of Japanese studies, Japanese full names are written in the order of the country’s practice, i.e. surname followed by given name.

A Japanese saying goes, “Heaven gives not two things to a person”. Thus, a woman can only be either beautiful or clever, but not both, or a man cannot be a sumo champion and a Mozart at the same time. However, there are just too many exceptions to this rule to make it worth following. What about the other way round? Does Heaven take away everything from a person? Ozaki Hosai was born a privileged individual with many enviable talents, good education and a lot of luck, but died a god-forsaken soul with everything lost - well almost. Heaven did not take haiku away from him.

せきをしてもひとり

seki wo shitemo hitori

even coughing

I do it alone

This is probably the most famous of all haiku by Hosai. It is one of the most quoted haiku poems in the world. It is short and looks almost like a mere statement of a moment of everyday life. And yet on first reading one is struck that it is something different from what one usually reads, something special and something deep, albeit one knows not why or how. If one is familiar with other haiku by Hosai or knows a bit about his life, one feels instantly that it bears his unmistakeable hallmarks, his flavour, his feelings and his smell. A connoisseur can distinguish it from Hosai’s nearest, and most certainly the only, equivalent, Taneda Santoka. Deprived of almost all earthly things, Hosai drifted to live in Shodo-shima Island near Osaka the last eight months of his life. To all intents and purposes he was a beggar all but name, and a seriously sick man. This was one of the heart-rending haiku he wrote during this saddest period.

In this last stage of his 41 years’ life, Hosai was virtually alone, having separated from his wife a few years previously. However, his misanthropy began much earlier and culminated when at the age of 36 he resigned Toyo Seimei Life Insurance after ten years of relatively successful career. The feeling he expressed in coming to the decision to resign was, ‘I realised the folly of my being part of society and decided to leave it and protect my solitude.’

On my last counting, I came up with as many as 30 of Hosai’s haiku which talk about ‘alone’ or ‘loneliness’. Let us look at some of them:

つくづく淋しい我が影よ動かしてみる

tsuku-zuku sabisii waga kage yo ugokashite miru

the more I see it the more I feel

how very lonely my shadow looks

I try to move it

こんなよい月を一人で見て寝る

kon na yoi tsuki wo hitori de mite neru

such good moon

I view it all on my own

and go to bed

淋しいぞ一人五本の指を開いて見る

sabishii zo hitori gohon no yubi wo hiraite miru

so lonely

I spread all my fingers

five of them

雪空一羽の鳥となりて暮れる

yuki-zora ichi-wa no tori to narite kureru

snowy sky

I become a bird

now twilight

How come did Hosai turn his back on society, weary of the fellow human beings, wishing to be left alone except for a very few friends? As was indicated before, he was better endowed with talents, better educated and more privileged than most.

He was born into a samurai family in Tottori in Western Japan in 1885, where his father served as the prothonotary at the Tottori District Court. They were not rich but it was a solid, respectable, education-orientated family. He was a bright boy, especially good at composition, showing an early sign of literary talent. He loved reading right from the primary school days to the extent of an obsession. He was a sickly child and somewhat withdrawn. He began to write tanka and haiku when he was at a secondary school (14 years old).

So bright was he that he was sent to Daiich Koto Gakko in Tokyo, the top high school in Japan. He then entered Tokyo Imperial University where he studied law. After graduation, he briefly worked for a news agency company and then joined the prestigious Toyo Life Insurance Company where he built his career not as a salesman but in the field of insurance contract. His bright future was thus secured, or so it seemed. He ended it after ten years, which was unthinkable in those days.

One should perhaps say that it was rather a miracle that he lasted as long as ten years, considering what he was really like, especially during the 5 years after the resignation when his life rapidly went downhill in more ways than one until he died what to normal people was a miserable death. Hearing his crisis, friends came to his rescue and secured a good job for him at a newly established marine and fire insurance company located in Keijo (Seoul, present-day Korea). But he was fired the following year.

I can think of quite a few reasons why such a fortunate person as Hosai ended up in utter failure. Some of them are more obvious than others. The most conspicuous reason was his heavy drinking in which he started to indulge during his university days. Why? At an early stage of his study, he began to be more interested in philosophy and religion than his chosen subject, law. He also got into Zen Buddhism, visiting Enkaku-ji Temple in Kamakura whenever possible. His mood often became nihilistic. But all this seems to me to be closely connected with another key event which occurred around the same time and which, to me at least, seems to have had a lasting effect on him throughout his life. He fell in love with his cousin.

Her name was Sawa Yoshie. They first met when he was 15. Later, during his university days he proposed to her in October 1906. Yoshie had just graduated from Nippon Women’s College in Tokyo, having read Japanese literature. Yoshie’s elder brother, a medical doctor, opposed to this marriage on the ground of the proximity of blood. Elder brothers, especially the eldest, in Japan were just as powerful as fathers. Hosai was obliged to give it up. He was quite devastated. This contributed to the exacerbation of his alcoholism whatever its real cause may have been. It is well-known that drinking, especially excessive one, may give one a temporary comfort or escape but that it inevitably leads to one’s depression and melancholy.

It is curious that Hosai seems to have written so few a haiku about his alcoholism, or just enjoyment of drinking like any other person. Maybe he was too busy drinking to write a haiku about it. One I have found goes:

和尚とたつた二人で呑んで酔って来た

osho to tatta futari de non de yotte kita

the Buddhist priest and I,

only two of us, drinking…

I am getting tipsy

This is one of the 2,721 (then) unpublished haiku poems which were discovered at the home in Kamakura of Hosai’s mentor, Ogiwara Senseisui. The discovery was reported by the Tokyo Shimbun dated 31 March 1997. It made quite a stir in Japan’s haiku community in general and among experts and fans of Hosai in particular.

It is believed that this particular haiku was written in 1925 (he was 40 years old) when he was briefly staying in Obama, Fukui Prefecture, working as a sexton for the priest of Joko-ji Temple. It was a Rinzai-Zen temple which was left in a shocking state after the fire of its main building (Hondo) eighteen months previously. The priest, Shun-o Osho, had been demoted and was in abject poverty. It is only natural that anyone should assume that there developed some form of kinship between these two ‘miserable’ men who must have shared sake, a rare commodity for the poor, and consoled each other. The temple finally went bankrupt. Hosai had to resume the life of hand-to-mouth existence as a mendicant and wanderer.

Who was this Ogiwara Seisensui? He was a big wig in the Jiyu-ritsu (free verse) haiku movement which was originally started by Kawahigashi Hekigodo. In 1911 he founded So-Un haiku magazine which became one of the most influential strongholds of the progressive haiku movements as opposed to the traditionalist schools represented by Takahama Kyoshi. Hekigodo was initially with So-Un but when Seisensui declared that kigo was not required in haiku, he disagreed and resigned.

Seisensui went to the same high school and university as Hosai. He was one year senior and ever since played the part of a mentor in haiku towards the latter. For Hosai he was more than a haiku teacher. He was a true friend and almost like a real brother. In 1923 when the Great Kanto Earthquake struck Tokyo, Seisensui’s wife was killed by it. Heart-broken, he could no longer stay in Tokyo and moved to live in Kyoto. He looked after Hosai in every way, ranging from tutelage of haiku through practical help to spiritual salvation. Without him, we might well have not had the haiku poet Hosai as we know it.

Another reason why I believe Hosai turned his back on society lies in his personality. He simply did not get on well with other people, especially his seniors. He offended, annoyed and antagonised them. He made them feel small and inferior, not physically or mentally but in terms of intellectual superiority. That he was academically superior made people feel nervous, jealous or uncomfortable. He could be sarcastic and his remarks are often cutting. He became abusive and foul-mouthed when drunk. In short, he does not seem to have been a particularly likeable fellow.

All this basically backfired on him. Now he felt the whole humanity up against him. Having renounced the world he fast found himself at the bottom of the heap. He was increasingly isolated. What destruction, and fall from grace it was for a man with everything! As he had a lot, so he lost a lot. He lost his career, reputation, money, family, house, wife (but not formally divorced), most of his friends and acquaintances plus decency, human dignity and self-respect.

乞食に話しかける我となって草もゆ

kojiki ni hanashi-kakeru ware to natte kusa moyu

becoming me

who talks to a beggar…

grass growing

Another reason which contributed to Hosai’s melancholy was his ill-health. From his childhood he did not enjoy robust health. In 1922 when he went to Korea under Japanese rule to take up his new post at an insurance company, he contracted pleurisy which became chronic for the rest of his life. Unhealthy life style, malnourishment and fast-diminishing will to live made his condition progressively worse. However, even his illness turned into some excellent haiku. A heart-rending example from 1923 when he was still in Keijo (now Seoul) has a hint of cold objectivity and self-mockery:

わが胸からとった黄色い水がフラスコで鳴る

waga mune kara totta kiiroi mizu ga furasuko de naru

the yellow water

extracted from my chest,

making noises in the flask

Back in the mainland Japan, after so many false attempts to settle down wherever he could have peace and calm, he was at last lucky in 1925 to find just such a place in Shodo-shima Island near Osaka. This was Minango-an hermitage at Saiko-ji Temple where he could live not as a sexton but the sole, independent resident, in other words a house master. However, his health had reached its worst stage. The catalogue of his illnesses included pleural adhesion, lung tuberculosis, laryngeal tuberculosis and throat inflammation. Anyone would get depressed with so many illnesses to contend with. His hermit life lasted only 8 months. On 7 April 1926 he died alone except for a couple living nearby who came to watch over him. His estranged wife tried to be with him before he passed away but could not make it by a very narrow margin.

A death is a death. However, the death of Hosai was an especially lonely and poignant one. A few weeks earlier, Ogiwara Seisensui, strongly suggested Hosai to be sent to Kyoto University Hospital at once to have proper diagnosis and treatment. Hosai steadfastly refused, which is a bit odd because usually he adored Seisensui and followed his advice. Probably, Hosai sensed that his death was now unavoidable anyway and very soon at that. More to the point he actually wanted to die as he had written intensely in a letter. He would not lose such a golden opportunity of dying peacefully. He was utterly and completely tired of life. It was the end of his forty-one years, two months and eighteen days’ life. However, it was also the end of all the sufferings, physical and spiritual, with which he was afflicted in life, especially the meaninglessness of it. All, however, except for haiku. One suggestive haiku written during this seclusion goes:

口あけぬ蜆死んでゐる

kuchi akenu shijimi shinde iru

a freshwater clam,

not opening its ‘mouth’…

quite dead

The Japanese love to eat clams (very good for you), especially in the miso-soup for breakfast. They used to be a poor man’s meal as they were harvested plentifully almost everywhere in Japan and extremely cheap to buy. One assumes that even Hosai could afford them, or people could well-afford giving them to him. When you buy fresh clams they often have sands in their shell. To get rid of these gritty and unpleasant things, you put clams in cold water with lots of salt before cooking. They soon spew the sands from their ‘mouth’, making themselves self-washed clean. Within minutes after being put in boiling water, all the clams will open their ‘mouth’ quite wide, except for the dead ones. Most Hosai’s haiku are factual and therefore this haiku must also be derived from observing what was actually happening. It is hardly beyond the realm of our imagination that he compared himself to the dead clam. Hosai was like a clam retreating into his shell. Another haiku he wrote has an eerily predictive quality about it:

これでもう外に動かないでも死なれる

korede mou soto ni ugokanai demo shinareru

now I feel I can die

without moving out

At long last Hosai found the final place to rest. At his death and, more dramatically, just after it, he became a darling of Jiyu-ritsu (free verse) haiku, along with Santoka. These two names come to one’s mind more than anyone else’s when one thinks of the free haiku movements in Japan. However, Hosai actually started with strictly traditional haiku style and wrote many haiku accordingly from his middle-school days until he graduated the university. These works seem to me to be more of an “accomplished” nature than exceptionally good or brilliant, a product of a yutosei (prefect or top student) rather than a haiku genius. They are faultless but do not move one. However, as we seldom encounter these works let us sample some.

きれ凧の糸かかりけり梅の枝

kire-dako no ito kakari keri ume no eda

a stray kite

its string has got entangled…

the plum branch

What is amazing is that Hosai was only a middle school pupil when he wrote this haiku. It has no hint of childishness or childlikeness, no trace of being a beginner or a slow learner. It is accomplished. At this stage he was basically self-taught, though he had like-minded friends with whom to run a school haiku magazine and discuss the genre. Another example from this period goes:

水打つて静かな家や夏やなぎ

mizu utte shizuka na ie ya natsu-yanagi

watered,

a quiet house…

summer willow

Calmness itself, this haiku exudes a sense of maturity of the author both in haiku and life. Even the wind blowing through the bright green willow leaves does not seem to make any sound. Hosai was only 14 or thereabout.

病いへずうつうつとして春くるる

yamai iezu utsu-utsu to shite haru kururu

illness lingers,

I feel fed up and depressed…

spring ending

As we have seen already Hosai was a sickly boy. And various illnesses afflicted him all through his life. Notwithstanding spring time, which is lovely and uplifting in Japan especially for young people, he had to endure ill health and melancholic mood. Spring was going before he even could enjoy it like a normal person. His sentiment of despair began early.

峠路や時雨晴れたり馬の声

toge-ji ya shigure hare tari uma no koe

hilltop lane,

winter rain has cleared up…

a horse’s neigh

Written in his high-school days, this haiku indicates that Hosai went on excursions from time to time. This one could be a trip to Hakone. He joined a haiku circle headed by Ogiwara Seisensui. Some assert that he was not a keen member. This may well have been because Seisensui was pursuing free verse haiku movement whereas Hosai was still strictly following traditionalist lines. The two opposing styles did not mix.

酒のまぬ身は葛水のつめたさよ

sake nomanu mi wa kassui no tsumetasa

not drinking…

my body feels as cold as

the drought

This was also written in the same period. What is interesting is that it is a strange haiku for a number of reasons. To begin with, the kigo, tsumetasa (coldness), is that of winter while drought is (usually) a summer phenomenon, indicating heat. Also, the word “mi” can mean both a human body in the physical sense and a human being including his or her heart and mind. So, it can be talking about the lack of warmth in the heart of the person not drinking alcohol. It may well be Hosai’s bad excuse in favour of drinking.

寝て聞けば遠き昔を鳴く蚊かな

nete kike ba tohki mukashi wo naku ka kana

lying, I hear

a mosquito relating

long time past

This is one of the haiku poems Hosai composed in his university days. It shows maturity of this already very mature poet. For him, the mosquito is himself. “Long time past” sounds like a slight exaggeration for a person in his early 20s and that is probably why he delegated the story-telling to the mosquito. It may be a reflection of his aloofness from his hometown. But away from home, he was understandably missing it from time to time and indulged in the reminiscences of his childhood.

木犀に人を思ひて徘徊す

mokusei ni hito wo omoite haikai su

a fragrant olive,

I wander around…

thinking of her

This cannot be but about his cousin Yoshie. As we have seen already Hosai fell in love with her. The intensity of the strong and sweet smell of this plant matches the intensity of his longing for her. The word haikai (to wander) presages the wanderings of his final years.

別れ来て淋しさに折る野菊かな

wakare kite sabishisa ni oru nogiku kana

parting…

I pick a wild chrysanthemum

out of loneliness

The haiku does not mention with whom Hosai parted but judging from all circumstantial evidence it must be Yoshie, his sweetheart he had to give up marrying. His heart was broken. It is the contention of the present author that this was the direct and most decisive contributing factor of his subsequent decline. Oh, women, what can they do to men?

In his university days, Hosai submitted his haiku to the Hototogisu (Cuckoo), the bastion of traditional haiku presided over by Takahama Kyoshi. He also contributed to Kokumin-Haidan, the haiku page of the influential newspaper, Kokumin-Shimbun. It is interesting to note that Hosai was not inclined to write free verse haiku even if by then he had known Seisensui for at least three or four years. However, this was to change soon after he graduated the university in 1909.

In 1911 when Hosai was 26 three important things happened for him. He got a job at Toyo Life Insurance, he got married to Kaoru (19) who was a local girl in his hometown, and last but not least the flagship of the free verse haiku movement, the So-un, was inaugurated by Seisensui. The new haiku magazine finally turned Hosai’s interest away from the traditional haiku towards free verse haiku. However, it was not until 4 years later that his first haiku was published in this magazine. After that there was a long period of 4 years when he stopped submitting his haiku to the So-un. It looks as though his free verse haiku saw its true and first blossoming only when he renounced the world in 1923. He was 38 then.

1923 was a tumultuous year. He was fired from the insurance company where he was given a second chance of becoming a proper and responsible man like anybody else. It was a very good job indeed. Also, this was to be his last job in the normal sense of the word. It is believed that he broke the vow and the condition of employment not to touch alcohol again.

On 1 September of the same year, Tokyo was hit by the Great Kanto Earthquake with 90,000 fatalities. The disaster was literally a great shock to Hosai. Though safe staying in Manchoukuo far away from mainland Japan, he was nonetheless mentally shaken. It was a life-changing event and his outlook of life turned into that of a hermit. He was in hospital when he heard the news, suffering from serious pleural adhesion of his left lung. The earthquake was tragic also because he was looking forward to the prospect of moving to live in Oshima Island of Izu, south of Tokyo, where the climate was warm and the environment hospitable but now rendered unliveable.

In the same year, after about two months of his hospitalisation, he and his wife, Kaori, evacuated from Manchuria and arrived in Nagasaki where he stayed with a friend of his around October. Here he convalesced and tried his hardest to find a temple where he could work and live as a sexton. But he was completely out of luck. This was ominous. He had failed disastrously in Korea and Manchuria. Now, his fate back in his homeland looked sealed. He was no longer seeking ordinary happiness, material well-being or decent lifestyle. That side of life was finished for him. So it was that there were only two things which he now eagerly sought. One was to find a place to live where he can finally acquire Anjin-Ryumei (peaceful and calm state of mind in a Buddhist sense). The other was to find a place to die with equanimity. In fact, these two things are virtually one and the same for him.

Such a place was Shodo-shima Island, as was mentioned before, where he lived only eight months until his death. Short as his life there might have been, it was the most productive time for his haiku, yielding as many as nearly 3,000 of them, and one might add, it was also his happiest time in his life, or the least unhappy time. He loved his abode, Minango-an of Saiko-ji Temple. It had a symbolic tall pine tree in its garden and from its small window he could have a glimpse at the Setonai-kai sea. To Seisensui he had mentioned his wish ‘to die where he can see the sea.’ He could not have lived, or died, in a more ideal place.

The islanders, however, did not like outsiders and Hosai was looked at with added suspicion as rumours spread quickly about him. Even so, he managed to strike friendship with two of haiku friends who were influential in the island and who supported him in various ways. He also had a few neighbours who were kind to him, bringing in fish, vegetables or any other daily necessities. He may have turned his back on humans but deep down he missed them. Seisensui presided over his funeral and aftermath and used his haiku magazine, So-un, to honour Hosai and to celebrate his haiku achievements as a champion of the Jiyu-ritsh (free style) movement. Soon after, he had an anthology of Hosai’s haiku, Taiku, published. Hosai was buried where he lived, Saiko-ji Temple, which was a form of blessing. The cemetery was very close to his hut, Minango-an. Thus it was that Hosai died as no one but his name began to live ever after.

His death poem is believed to be:

春の山のうしろから烟が出だした

haru no yama no ushiro kara kemuri ga dedashita

from behind

the spring mountain

smoke began to emerge

For me it is not easy to attempt an accurate interpretation of this poem. The mountain is deemed to be Mukade-yama which is one of the three mountains seen from his hut. He liked it and often went to climb its peak to admire the panoramic landscape beyond. It enshrined a Buddhist deity of commerce and literature. What the smoke was of one can only speculate. It was probably farmers burning the field, or just making a bonfire. Maybe the latter, considering the season of spring. My favourite interpretation is that it was a symbolic picture of cremation as Hosai thought of himself disappearing into thin air - the warm and gentle spring air drifting towards the sea he so admired.