I should be very much grateful, if you would be good enough to agree to
Very sincerely yours, Kitasono Katue
128: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound & Dorothy Pound
Printed PC-1 1649 1-chome-nishi, Magomemachi, Otaku, Tokyo.
Very sincerely yours, Kitasono Katue
128: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound & Dorothy Pound
Printed PC-1 1649 1-chome-nishi, Magomemachi, Otaku, Tokyo.
Ezra-Pound-Japan-Letters-essays
D.
D.
Paige of Wellesley College wrote to me of
publishing E. P. letters. I could meet his desire miraculously. A miracle would take place for the Confucian Anthology! Please tell Mr. E. P. not to be disappointed.
VOU is going to change its title for Cendre. You think it is just becoming to a poetry magazine in the defeated country, don't you?
Ever yours, Katue Kitasono
116: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-2 VOU CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi, Magome-mati, Omoriku, Tokio. 18 December 1947
Dear Ezra,
Christmas is close by, and I hope you are very much improved in health.
The magazine VOU is to be put out in January, 1948 under the new name Cendre.
The VOU Club members have changed from 1940, and almost all the most excellent poets in Japan have joined the VOU.
The young VOU poets in the twenties mostly read T. S. Eliot, T. E. Hulme, F. Kafka and P. Valery. By touching such authors, they seem to try
? 118 SECTIONII: 1936-66
to reform themselves distorted in the military life.
About three weeks ago Ronald Duncan sent me his poems and his new
book, The Rape of Lucretia. He wrote he was translating in English Coc- teau's La Belle et le Bete. This picture will be released in Tokio, next January, and I am going to make a beautiful pamphlet about 8 pages for this film.
The translation of Cocteau's poem "Crucifixion" about 375 lines appeared in literary magazine Europe and 1 was little impressed with it. Recently I read Paul Putnam's Paris Was Our Mistress. I think the fault
of this book is that Putnam believes he knows artist's temperament.
A new experiment now I am trying is to bring a forceful and intellectual thrill into poetry. Such a poem like "The Raven" smelling of death and
gunpowder.
D. D. Paige in Wellesley College asked me to send him E. P. letters
which he is going to publish next year, and I sent them to him.
He said in his letter that the Pisan Cantos are among your finest work.
Much to my regret I can't get and read them.
117: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TPC-1 [n. p. ] [January, 1948? }
DEAR E. POUND--
Ever Yours, Katue Kitasono
I send you a copy of the Cendre which is the rebirth of the VOU.
I hope a charming duck will be born out of these ashes.
I shall be so much pleased, if you will write me your impression about
the Cendre.
Ever yours, Kit Kat
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 119
118: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-1 vou CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi Magome-mati, Ota, Tokio. 12 August 1948
Mrs. Dorothy POUND,
I thank you very much for your letter of June 30th and the extract from
Times-Herald.
I'm so glad you read my poem in the Four Pages.
The other day I received "Pisan Cantos," u'hich maybe Mr. D. D. Paige
arranged for sending to me. I am going to introduce Pisan Cantos in the Cendre no. 5.
Sokolsky's opinion w^as very meaningful for me.
The Japanese is a great nation, or an uncanny robot. She is not great, even when considered in the most favourable light, then. . . .
The only way to save the Japanese in the present is anger. A man who has nothing to be angry about is no better than a Jelly-fish, pisan cantos moves me with its great anger. Anger is just live God, live love. Yesterday, a small lovely book of poems arrived at me from Marcos Fingerit in la Plata.
Please give my best regards to E. P.
Ever yours, Katue Kitasono
119: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-1 vou CLUB, 1649 1-Tiome-nisi, Magome-mati, Omoriku, Tokio. 28 September 1948
Dear Ezra Pound,
Much pleased to get your air mail of Sept. 19. I bought and read Kumasaka (recently published), which I send you under separate cover.
Did Cendre no. 4 reach you? Kenneth Rexroth, the Californian poet, sent me his translations in English of a hundred Manyo and Kokin VVakas.
They are done pretty well, I think.
Tokio is now in the depth of Autumn and crickets are singing away.
Ever yours, Kitasono Katue
? 120
SECTIONII: 1936-66
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? SECTIONII: 1936-66 121
120: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-l vou CLUB 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 15 December 1948
Mme. Pound,
I am so sorry I have delayed so long in answering to you about Mao Shih.
I found out a nice edition of Mao which I send you under separate cover. I fear this is not the exact one E. P. wants. As I don't know what is sealed character, I sent a letter to the librarian of Chung Shan University, asking if there is such an edition in China. I haven't got an answer yet from him. Please write me again and send the sample of the letters E. P. likes.
I will do my best in finding it.
121: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-l vou CLUB. 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokyo. 14 May 1949
Dear Ezra Pound,
Kit. Kat.
I congratulate you on your winning the Bollingen Prize of 1948 for the Pisan Cantos. The news appeared in many newspapers and magazines in Japan. Can you imagine the deepest impression of those who love and respect you in this country?
I wish you to be in good health.
122: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound TLS-l [Tokyo]. 20 September 1949
Dear Mrs. Dorothy Pound:
How is Mr. Pound?
Ever yours, Katue Kitasono
As you may know, Mr. Thomas Cole accepted to write for the VOU the interview with Mr. Pound.
As I wish to publish it with Mr. Pound's photograph, if you have any.
? 122 SECTIONII: 1936-66
please be so kind as to send me one. I will return it back to you as soon as it is over.
Cendre changes its title for VOU again.
123: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-1 l-nishi, Magome, Ota, Tokyo. 7 December 1949
Dear Mrs. Dorothy Pound:
Ever yours, Kitasono Katue
I have just sent out to you a photo of Fenollosa and stills of Umewaka Minoru under the separate cover. Most of these materials were burnt down or went astray during the war, but my stamina for searching them out at last caught a chance to have some of them. A few days ago I got the most splendid photo of Fenollosa from a Prof. Hisatomi Mitsugi, a student of Fenollosa. It was photoed at Yokohama in May 1939. As Prof. Hisatomi wanted to write a letter to Ez about Fenollosa, I told him your address. Please do him a favour.
One of the Umewaka Minoru stills is of Kayoikomachi, and the other, of Kocho, which were acted by Umewaka Minoru Junior. The tragical spirit of the Noh is perfectly presented in them, I think. 1 am sure Ez will be satisfied with them.
They will reach you about X'mas.
Mr. Thomas Cole's "Conversation with Pound" is going to appear in the VOU no. 35 issue.
Please remember me to Ez. With best wishes, Kitasono Katue
124: Katue Kitasono to Mary de Rachewiltz
TLS-2 Vou Club. 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 8 May 1950
Dear Mary,
The air letter April 22 from you reached me in the morning on May 7.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 123
How glad I was to hear from you again after so many years of pains of War! During the war it was a consolation for me to remember the friendship of you and your father to me. I still keep safely all your letters, photos and manuscript about Tirol that you wrote to me 10 years ago.
I knew, a few years ago, that you had married and been blessed with a baby. I should wish you joy at once, but in Japan at that time it was almost impossible to write to foreign friends.
Now I congratulate on your marriage and the births of Mr. Siegfried and Miss Patrizia. How splendid names they are!
Your father often sends me a telegram-like letter from Washington, and I, too, write him a telegram-like answer. But that's O. K. enough.
I earnestly wish the day may come swiftly when your father comes back to your Tyrolese castle with a Roman tower. You wait, I wait, and all the poets in the world over wait.
Please give my best regards to your family.
Ever Yours, Katue Kitasono
125: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-2 vou CLUB 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 12 May 1950
Dear Mrs. Pound,
Excuse me for my long silence. Last Sunday I got the first letter of Mrs. Mary de Rachewiltz since the War. It was my greatest Joy to know that she was very happy in Italy.
I am reminded that I haven't yet written an answer to Mr. Ezra's letter asking how I do think about the article by Mr. Yasutaka Fumoto, "Influence of Confucius still vastly felt today," which had been published in the Nippon Times. Yasutaka is a moderate Sinologist, and this essay is not unique opinion of his own, but only a skillful arrangement of the issues by many Sinologists in Japan. Prof. Goto Sueo is said to be the best scholar in Sinology. He is the author of " %. -^ z. ^^^ >'n. l3_ ? " [Cultural Currents Between East and West] In China in 1934 ^ 'i%. Z. [Chu Chien- chih] wrote a book, " ^ g ? ^^|, t f^ ^ J]] ^^^3 ? " iWuence
^f
of Chinese Ideas on Europe]
Please tell this answer to Mr. Ezra. With best wishes,
Kitasono Katue
? 124 SECTIONII: 1936-66
126: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-l [1649 1-nishi, Magome, Ota, Tokyo]. 24 May 1951
Dear Mrs. Pound,
I am very sorry that I have kept such a long silence, and hope you are all very well.
I have been waiting every moment for the news of Mr. Ezra's return. What a patience we must have!
Now after a year's reticence, the magazine VOU is ready to start again, expected to appear in the end of June, and I am anxious to translate and publish in it those exquisitely charming poems of Mr. E. P. as following:
"The Garret"
"Alba"
"In a Station of the Metro" "The Encounter"
"Coitus"
"IMEIRO"
From the Selected Poems (N. D. )
Could I be allowed? If I could, would you be so kind as to send me a
permission for my translation and publication of them?
I am eagerly looking forward to your kindest arrangement and answer. Please give my best wishes to Mr. Ez. when you meet him.
Very sincerely yours, Kitasono Katue
127: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-l 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 4 November 1952
Dear Ezra Pound,
My friend Ueda Tamotsu who is a poet, surrealist, and now a professor of English literature in Keio University in Tokio wishes to translate and publish your How to Read. He has asked me to request you for him that you would kindly give him permission.
I believe that he will make the most excellent translation of it, and this will become a start for your many other important books to appear in Japanese hereafter.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66
125
I am sorry I must tell you that they cannot pay you for it, because the book will be of limited edition in a very small number.
it.
I should be very much grateful, if you would be good enough to agree to
Very sincerely yours, Kitasono Katue
128: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound & Dorothy Pound
Printed PC-1 1649 1-chome-nishi, Magomemachi, Otaku, Tokyo. 1 January 1953. (Two cards postmarked: 21 December 1952 and 1 January 1953, to Ezra Pound and Dorothy Pound] ^W -pv ^tl-,
129: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TLS-l Tokio. 17 November 1953
Dear Ezra POUND,
h [A Happy New Year]
I am very sorry that I haven't written to you such a long time.
The other day Michael Reck visited me (I hadn't seen him since Febru- ary, and I was surprised to see him speak Japanese so fluently) and I showed him the typescript of the TRAXINIAI. He consented to take it to Mr. Ito Michio. He will soon come and tell me about it.
It was my greatest impression that I could catch the aspect of Noh in so vivid words and lively expression of you in Dxe Translations o/ E. P.
Now I am reading Lewis' V^oiimg W\\\.
VOU CLUB Katue YJiiasono
Ever yours, YAiasono Katue
? 126 SECTIONII: 1936-66
130: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono TLS-1 [n. p. ] 30 January 1959
Dear and respected Kit-Kat, after many ages, and perfidies etc.
There seems at last a chance of getting decent edition of the Odes, with both seal character and the reproduction of the magnificent text you sent me years ago. Have you any idea what edition it is? I can send photo to refresh your memory. Beautiful characters, and the Odes without the notes, as they are in Mao etc.
I dare say Vanni sends you his printed matter?
Both the german and Italian versions of TRAXINIAI are in process of production (stage) as well as print, but it will need the Minoru or Japanese technique to get any result near to what I or Sophokles could get much pleasure from.
I recall, as ever Lady Gregory, when a north english company had mur- dered The King's Threshold; "An oi tell him whoi doesn't he wroite comedies, an den he would have a few pleasant moments whoile he's in deh teeYayter! "
I tell him why doesn't he write comedies and then he would have a few pleasant moments while he is in the theatre.
Projected edition of the Odes will have two texts in Chinese, my american and Scarfoglio's Italian, and the indication of the sound (which of course wont indicate much, but at least the number of syllables in the original, and the tone variation).
131: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-l Hotel Italia, Rapallo, Italy. 12 June 1959
Dear Kit Kat
I am, as you can see from post mark, back in Rapallo where I rec'd your first letter, and where there is still a file of BroJetto.
TRAXINIAI is being done in Berlin, heaven knows how, but some- one has said it will take them 50 years to see what has been done. I still believe that only a Noh company can do it properly.
Ever yours Ezra Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 127
1 haven't learned kana yft. Pages of the magnificent text of the Odes that you sent have been photographed in the not extinguished hope of a decent edition, seal, that square character, my english and Scarfoglio's italian. but. . . .
It might help if some critic not in terror of the american "cultural" (bless your heart) "foundations," should animadvert on the delays in transmission and the spirit of Harvard and other universities. Beauson Tseng has approved the translation, if you know who he is, or if there is any survival of Tcheu's lament: they ought to be like brothers, they read the same books.
Kripalani has just sent me his translation of Tagore's novels, and some Gandhi.
Books are kept in the Warsaw cellarage. More editors might follow your method of printing a few words in the language of the books they mention, which would at least tell the ignorant alien what they consider worth notice.
I have enough superfluous bone (calcination) in my neck to sup- ply a giraffe, and it has been slowing me down.
I don't imagine the /apan Times has been returned to the peo- ple who had it before my untimely note on Matsuoka? Or that other than aesthetic ideas have much more outlet in Tokyo than anywhere else? I suspect you have forgotten your english during the past 20 years. At the same time one might manage more lively exchange of correspondence. Young Reck must know enough Japanese to help at it.
I don't think you have ever mentioned Junzaburo, or Iwasaki. Af- ter success of TRAXINIAI in the german translation (Eva Hesse) there are requests for Noh, for performance in Germany.
The charming member of your other profession, who had 200 vari- eties of roses in his Rapallo (quite small) garden has passed into whatev- er non-Bhudist realm of non- or not-non existence. There is a spate of building, in I suspect, very unstable material, and less beach open to the unorganized public. The gulf still contains water and the mountains not greatly altered by bombing raids d'antan.
Very interesting fotos in one VOU that I have passed on to the Oberti, who will, I think, send you Ana etc. , they and their friend Carre- ga will take note of anything your friends send them. Does anyone want a copy of Boris' bilingual Book of the Dead? No use my sending Scheiwiller notices if he has already done so. Mary's Kagekiyo has gone into another large edition. What does Japan do with TV?
? 128 SECTIONII: 1936-66
Italian phrase heard recently: memories are the white hairs of the heart. From wife of old tennis pal of mine now invalid.
benedictions, Ez. P.
132: Katue Kitasono to Mary de Rachewiltz
TLS-l 1-26, 5 chome, Akasaka, Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan. 28 November 1966
Dear Mary de Rachewiltz,
Your book of poems, Di Riflesso, reached me safely passing through many hands from my former address. I cannot read your poems, because I don't know Italian language, but visually I can see that these poems are very nice and beautiful. Many thanks.
I lost many of my books I loved during the war, among which the text of your story is included. Very, very sorry!
with best wishes, Kitasono Katue
P. S. I also thank you for the copy of your fine work of translation, ll Teatro Giapponese No.
? III POUND'SPOST-WORLDWARII CONTACTSWITH JAPAN: 1956-68
In this section are collected five letters of Ryozo Iwasaki to Ezra Pound, seven letters of Pound to Iv^asaki, one letter of Shiro Tsunoda to Pound, a fragment of Pound's letter to Tsunoda, one letter of Pound to Tomoji Okada, and one letter of Pound to the Librarian, University of Virginia.
The first book-length collection of Pound's poems in Japanese appeared in 1956, the culmination of years of dedicated effort of Ryozo Iwasaki (1908-76), then Professor of English Literature at Keio University. A scholar working in classical Greek and Latin literature, Iwasaki provided an amply annotated translation which immediately won very favorable notice.
In his letter to Pound, Iwasaki enclosed a poem by his colleague, Junzaburo Nishiwaki, who had written the "Preface" to Iwasaki's transla- tion. On reading the poem, Pound suggested to Iwasaki that Nishiwaki be recommended to the Swedish Academy as a Nobel Prize candidate. This note from Pound, though brief, created a tremendous impact on the Japanese literary world.
Since his undergraduate days, Iwasaki had been associated with var- ious literary circles, and had written a number of critical essays. In 1927, a year after he entered Keio University, he joined four other young people to start the magazine, Butai Shinsei [New Voices on Theatre). And in 1931, with other members of the University, he launched another magazine. Shin Mita-ha [New Mita Group).
His interest in Pound goes back to his early years. In 1934 he wrote "Poetics of Mr. Pound" for the Shiho [Poetics) edited by Shiro Murano and Azuma Kondo. He also contributed essays on modern poets including Pound to the poetry journal, Shinryodo [New Territory), around 1937.
During World War II his main concern was directed toward classical Roman literature. He published A History of Roman Literature in 1940 and Selected Works of Cicero in 1943. But after the war, his interest in American literature was revived. He wrote "Ezra Loomis Pound" for Seminars on Contemporary Poetry (Sogensha) in 1950. He then published the transla- tion, Ezra Pound: Selected Poems (Arechi Shuppan, 1956). In October, 1965, Iwasaki spoke over the radio (NHK) on Ezra Pound in celebration of his 80th birthday, broadcasting also selected recordings of Pound's own readings. For the poetry magazine, Mugen [Infinity), he wrote three articles:
129
? 130
SECTIONIII: 1956-68
"The Structure of the Cantos" (August, 1960], "Cock and Snail: Pound and Eliot" (October, 1965), and "Ezra Pound and Cummings" (November, 1967]. [As for his other works on Pound, see Donald Gallup, A Bibliography of Ezra Pound. ] When Iwasaki traveled through Italy on his way to England in 1961, Pound's illness regrettably made it impossible for him to meet the aged poet.
While still in Washington, D. C. , Pound received a letter from another Japanese scholar, Shiro Tsunoda (1922- ], now professor at Obirin Uni- versity. Though Pound was busy at that time, with various people outside the hospital trying to have the court dismiss the indictment against him, he replied providing several answers to Tsunoda's questions on his poetry. It is a pity that, except for one fragment which is printed in the following section, the remainder of the letter was lost.
Tomoji Okada, a retired businessman, wrote Pound offering a correc- tion of a misleading passage in Pound's Introduction to his No translation. Pound had written that, after Fenollosa's sudden death in London, the Japanese government had "sent a warship for his body. " But Okada claimed to know that Fenollosa's ashes had been brought to Japan via the Siberian Railroad. In fact, Okada had asked his friend Yasotaro Kato. who was returning to Japan via Siberia, to carry Fenollosa's ashes to Japan with him. Pound's letter to Okada may reflect his attitude toward history: "I certainly did not invent it. " One may wonder if indeed the ashes were brought back to Japan on a Japanese warship over the Japan Sea. But Tokutaro Shigehisa, who later investigated the matter, suggests that the ashes probably arrived at Tsuruga from Vladivostok on September 19, 1909 on the Hozanmaru of the Osaka Shipping Co. (Tokutaro Shigehisa, "Fenollosa's Ashes and Japan," Comparative Literature, vol. 2, 1959. pp. 83-4. ]
In 1968 when the present editor visited with Pound in Paris, the poet wrote a note to the librarian at the University of Virginia granting permis- sion for access to a microfilm copy of the Fenollosa notebooks. All the notebooks of Fenollosa sent to Pound by Mary Fenollosa were at that time under lock and key, and it would have been impossible otherwise for me to have read them. At the time, Hugh Kenner's microfilm of part of the notebooks had been stored at the library of the University of Virginia.
? SECTIONIII: 1956-68 131
133: Ryozo Iwasaki to Ezra Pound
TLS-4 1-34, Mita, Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan. 30 November 1956
Dear Mr. Pound,
I am sending you the Japanese translation of your poems to-day. It has meant a great deal to me. I have no words to apologize to you for publishing your poems without permission. The Waste Land has been translated by several hands in our country, but "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley" has never been put into Japanese, and some favourable comments to my translation have appeared in Japanese newspapers. But I must confess it was a very difficult task. I wonder what it will seem to you. I want you to tell me what effect it has on you.
I had a very pleasant journey to Kobe the other day, and found that Ernest Fenollosa's lock of hair had been buried at Homyoin, Enjoji Temple in Otsu, near Kyoto. I enclose photographs of the grave, which was built by Mr. Laurence Binyon and other foreigners. The weather was most over- whelmingly lovely. He sleeps among the cedar grove and beautiful ferns by the Lake Biwa (i. e. lute). Vale! Valel
Yours very sincerely, Ryozo Iwasaki
? 132 SECTIONIII: 1956-68
Appendix 1
Contents of Selected Poems of Ezra Pound (Japanese Translation)
Preface by Junzaburo Nishiwaki "Sestina: Altaforte"
"Rome"
"The Garden"
"The Spring"
"Dance Figure"
"Gentildonna"
"To Kalon"
"Ladies"
"After Ch'u Yuan"
"Fan-Piece, for her Imperial Lord" "In a Station of the Metro" "Alba"
"Papyrus"
"To Formianus' Young Lady Friend" "The Lake Isle"
"Epitaphs"
"Homage to Quintus S. F. Christianus" "Moeurs contemporaines (Stele)" "Canto I"
"Canto IV" (abridged)
"Hugh Selwyn Mauberley"
Appendix 2
January in Kyoto
Janus, old man,
Your name is damp and grey and too prolonged A ring to rattle in my verse;
You double-faced, diluted churl of churls,
You corn-dull, poppy-wilted, beaver-brown.
By Junzaburo Nishiwaki
? SECTIONIII: 1956-68 133
You snow-eater, a parasite on roots and berries, Iconoclast of gins and perries,
You're really one of the pariah dogs
Yelping, thrash-worth, at the belated gods.
I knowthedeitieswouldratherinflate
And flow in pipes than in metric odes, but now You suddenly brought us shy myth,
When we, disguised as Zeus and Hermes, went Looking for orchids that will hang oblong and dim At cuckoo-crow at the hell lady's door.
In the Hiei foot-hills by pebbly-purring streams.
We went into a peasant's cottage to see
How one cleans and adorns one's range
With a sprig of rue and a tangle of hips
To honour the bluff god of the kitchen fire.
The old baucis-and-philemon tree rustled its top: "Reverend sirs, you are early. Well now. "
My friend, a Ben Jonson scholar at the university, And a complete parr angler, could speak
The Yase doric: "Look what we've got,
Such lovely slender buds; may we leave
These things with you by this mercury bush,
As we're going to see Emau Convent up there? " Again we went out into loam land, dreaming
Of Angels and pottery crystal-beaming:
This time as tinkers we wandered . . .
Post-orchid journey it will be named.
A redolent trek, there was a smell
Of yellow plum blossom in the turnip fields.
"Who is it walking with you, strangers? "
"It is a woman. "
She is in holy visibility:
That was an old woman with the help of a stick On her way from Shu-gaku-in to Iwakura
To draw out money, the account book on her head, Nicely done up in a peony-patterned cloth Probably to ransom her helen out of peonage.
She had a leer like a boar
And had a stutter like Darley;
? 134 SECTIONIII: 1956-68
But it might be thunder if she chose to parley. Excited by our indignation on the boar ravages,
With fury and frothing she made a Delphic utterance: "It only took them a night to devour
A middlesex acre (as Macaulay says) of your yams; Last year they shot a huge one, but nobody
. "
Could bear him away, so there you are
So saying she glowered at us and passed by.
Now I come to the second nonnes tale:
We greeted the ancress in a most elegant way; Unrobed, aproned, head tonsured as azure as
The kingfisher's wings, sweeping up fallen leaves Among the landscape stones green with moss, Herself indistinguishable from the blue.
"Good morning, Madame Eglantine, may I
See your garden? Wonderful!
And do you happen to know my relation
Who is a prioress living near Kitano-Tenjin? "
"I wouldn't know, sir. But how odd, when I've been Of the same tribe nearly all my life.
Bo tree, that. Very, very rare. "
"Perhaps you could let me have a twig in the spring; I'd like to graft it on a stock . . . mulberry it is. " Enlightenment . . . an entwining of rose and bay. "By all means. Secretum secretorum! "
When we returned full circle to the roots
Of our orchids, we maundered to sanctify
Fertility . . . magic jabber . . . over cups of tea.
The wife decanted golden mead to immortalize
Our chats and our pseudo-godliness, but we tried Hard to hide our mortality . . .
Biographical Note: J. Nishiwaki was born in 1896. He graduated at Keio University but later studied English literature at Oxford University. He is the author of a number of books on English and European languages and literature and has translated Eliot's The Waste Land into Japanese. He has published several books of poems and although his output has been small, he is one of the most influential of modern poets in Japan to-day. He is at present Professor of English literature at Keio University.
. .
? SECTIONIII: 1956-68
135
134: Ezra Pound to Ryozo Iwasaki
TLS-2 [Pmk: WASHINGTON D. C. ) 28 December 1956
Dear Ryozo Iwasaki
It has been a most delightful Xmas, and I have you to thank for two of the pleasant surprises. Your elegantly printed "Mauber-
ley" {&- other poems), and J. N. 's Janus Poem, the latter most opportune, as Stock has started a magazine which badly needs it.
publishing E. P. letters. I could meet his desire miraculously. A miracle would take place for the Confucian Anthology! Please tell Mr. E. P. not to be disappointed.
VOU is going to change its title for Cendre. You think it is just becoming to a poetry magazine in the defeated country, don't you?
Ever yours, Katue Kitasono
116: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-2 VOU CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi, Magome-mati, Omoriku, Tokio. 18 December 1947
Dear Ezra,
Christmas is close by, and I hope you are very much improved in health.
The magazine VOU is to be put out in January, 1948 under the new name Cendre.
The VOU Club members have changed from 1940, and almost all the most excellent poets in Japan have joined the VOU.
The young VOU poets in the twenties mostly read T. S. Eliot, T. E. Hulme, F. Kafka and P. Valery. By touching such authors, they seem to try
? 118 SECTIONII: 1936-66
to reform themselves distorted in the military life.
About three weeks ago Ronald Duncan sent me his poems and his new
book, The Rape of Lucretia. He wrote he was translating in English Coc- teau's La Belle et le Bete. This picture will be released in Tokio, next January, and I am going to make a beautiful pamphlet about 8 pages for this film.
The translation of Cocteau's poem "Crucifixion" about 375 lines appeared in literary magazine Europe and 1 was little impressed with it. Recently I read Paul Putnam's Paris Was Our Mistress. I think the fault
of this book is that Putnam believes he knows artist's temperament.
A new experiment now I am trying is to bring a forceful and intellectual thrill into poetry. Such a poem like "The Raven" smelling of death and
gunpowder.
D. D. Paige in Wellesley College asked me to send him E. P. letters
which he is going to publish next year, and I sent them to him.
He said in his letter that the Pisan Cantos are among your finest work.
Much to my regret I can't get and read them.
117: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TPC-1 [n. p. ] [January, 1948? }
DEAR E. POUND--
Ever Yours, Katue Kitasono
I send you a copy of the Cendre which is the rebirth of the VOU.
I hope a charming duck will be born out of these ashes.
I shall be so much pleased, if you will write me your impression about
the Cendre.
Ever yours, Kit Kat
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 119
118: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-1 vou CLUB 1649 1-tiome-nisi Magome-mati, Ota, Tokio. 12 August 1948
Mrs. Dorothy POUND,
I thank you very much for your letter of June 30th and the extract from
Times-Herald.
I'm so glad you read my poem in the Four Pages.
The other day I received "Pisan Cantos," u'hich maybe Mr. D. D. Paige
arranged for sending to me. I am going to introduce Pisan Cantos in the Cendre no. 5.
Sokolsky's opinion w^as very meaningful for me.
The Japanese is a great nation, or an uncanny robot. She is not great, even when considered in the most favourable light, then. . . .
The only way to save the Japanese in the present is anger. A man who has nothing to be angry about is no better than a Jelly-fish, pisan cantos moves me with its great anger. Anger is just live God, live love. Yesterday, a small lovely book of poems arrived at me from Marcos Fingerit in la Plata.
Please give my best regards to E. P.
Ever yours, Katue Kitasono
119: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-1 vou CLUB, 1649 1-Tiome-nisi, Magome-mati, Omoriku, Tokio. 28 September 1948
Dear Ezra Pound,
Much pleased to get your air mail of Sept. 19. I bought and read Kumasaka (recently published), which I send you under separate cover.
Did Cendre no. 4 reach you? Kenneth Rexroth, the Californian poet, sent me his translations in English of a hundred Manyo and Kokin VVakas.
They are done pretty well, I think.
Tokio is now in the depth of Autumn and crickets are singing away.
Ever yours, Kitasono Katue
? 120
SECTIONII: 1936-66
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? SECTIONII: 1936-66 121
120: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-l vou CLUB 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 15 December 1948
Mme. Pound,
I am so sorry I have delayed so long in answering to you about Mao Shih.
I found out a nice edition of Mao which I send you under separate cover. I fear this is not the exact one E. P. wants. As I don't know what is sealed character, I sent a letter to the librarian of Chung Shan University, asking if there is such an edition in China. I haven't got an answer yet from him. Please write me again and send the sample of the letters E. P. likes.
I will do my best in finding it.
121: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-l vou CLUB. 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokyo. 14 May 1949
Dear Ezra Pound,
Kit. Kat.
I congratulate you on your winning the Bollingen Prize of 1948 for the Pisan Cantos. The news appeared in many newspapers and magazines in Japan. Can you imagine the deepest impression of those who love and respect you in this country?
I wish you to be in good health.
122: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound TLS-l [Tokyo]. 20 September 1949
Dear Mrs. Dorothy Pound:
How is Mr. Pound?
Ever yours, Katue Kitasono
As you may know, Mr. Thomas Cole accepted to write for the VOU the interview with Mr. Pound.
As I wish to publish it with Mr. Pound's photograph, if you have any.
? 122 SECTIONII: 1936-66
please be so kind as to send me one. I will return it back to you as soon as it is over.
Cendre changes its title for VOU again.
123: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-1 l-nishi, Magome, Ota, Tokyo. 7 December 1949
Dear Mrs. Dorothy Pound:
Ever yours, Kitasono Katue
I have just sent out to you a photo of Fenollosa and stills of Umewaka Minoru under the separate cover. Most of these materials were burnt down or went astray during the war, but my stamina for searching them out at last caught a chance to have some of them. A few days ago I got the most splendid photo of Fenollosa from a Prof. Hisatomi Mitsugi, a student of Fenollosa. It was photoed at Yokohama in May 1939. As Prof. Hisatomi wanted to write a letter to Ez about Fenollosa, I told him your address. Please do him a favour.
One of the Umewaka Minoru stills is of Kayoikomachi, and the other, of Kocho, which were acted by Umewaka Minoru Junior. The tragical spirit of the Noh is perfectly presented in them, I think. 1 am sure Ez will be satisfied with them.
They will reach you about X'mas.
Mr. Thomas Cole's "Conversation with Pound" is going to appear in the VOU no. 35 issue.
Please remember me to Ez. With best wishes, Kitasono Katue
124: Katue Kitasono to Mary de Rachewiltz
TLS-2 Vou Club. 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 8 May 1950
Dear Mary,
The air letter April 22 from you reached me in the morning on May 7.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 123
How glad I was to hear from you again after so many years of pains of War! During the war it was a consolation for me to remember the friendship of you and your father to me. I still keep safely all your letters, photos and manuscript about Tirol that you wrote to me 10 years ago.
I knew, a few years ago, that you had married and been blessed with a baby. I should wish you joy at once, but in Japan at that time it was almost impossible to write to foreign friends.
Now I congratulate on your marriage and the births of Mr. Siegfried and Miss Patrizia. How splendid names they are!
Your father often sends me a telegram-like letter from Washington, and I, too, write him a telegram-like answer. But that's O. K. enough.
I earnestly wish the day may come swiftly when your father comes back to your Tyrolese castle with a Roman tower. You wait, I wait, and all the poets in the world over wait.
Please give my best regards to your family.
Ever Yours, Katue Kitasono
125: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-2 vou CLUB 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 12 May 1950
Dear Mrs. Pound,
Excuse me for my long silence. Last Sunday I got the first letter of Mrs. Mary de Rachewiltz since the War. It was my greatest Joy to know that she was very happy in Italy.
I am reminded that I haven't yet written an answer to Mr. Ezra's letter asking how I do think about the article by Mr. Yasutaka Fumoto, "Influence of Confucius still vastly felt today," which had been published in the Nippon Times. Yasutaka is a moderate Sinologist, and this essay is not unique opinion of his own, but only a skillful arrangement of the issues by many Sinologists in Japan. Prof. Goto Sueo is said to be the best scholar in Sinology. He is the author of " %. -^ z. ^^^ >'n. l3_ ? " [Cultural Currents Between East and West] In China in 1934 ^ 'i%. Z. [Chu Chien- chih] wrote a book, " ^ g ? ^^|, t f^ ^ J]] ^^^3 ? " iWuence
^f
of Chinese Ideas on Europe]
Please tell this answer to Mr. Ezra. With best wishes,
Kitasono Katue
? 124 SECTIONII: 1936-66
126: Katue Kitasono to Dorothy Pound
TLS-l [1649 1-nishi, Magome, Ota, Tokyo]. 24 May 1951
Dear Mrs. Pound,
I am very sorry that I have kept such a long silence, and hope you are all very well.
I have been waiting every moment for the news of Mr. Ezra's return. What a patience we must have!
Now after a year's reticence, the magazine VOU is ready to start again, expected to appear in the end of June, and I am anxious to translate and publish in it those exquisitely charming poems of Mr. E. P. as following:
"The Garret"
"Alba"
"In a Station of the Metro" "The Encounter"
"Coitus"
"IMEIRO"
From the Selected Poems (N. D. )
Could I be allowed? If I could, would you be so kind as to send me a
permission for my translation and publication of them?
I am eagerly looking forward to your kindest arrangement and answer. Please give my best wishes to Mr. Ez. when you meet him.
Very sincerely yours, Kitasono Katue
127: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound
TLS-l 1649 1-nisi, Magome, Ota, Tokio. 4 November 1952
Dear Ezra Pound,
My friend Ueda Tamotsu who is a poet, surrealist, and now a professor of English literature in Keio University in Tokio wishes to translate and publish your How to Read. He has asked me to request you for him that you would kindly give him permission.
I believe that he will make the most excellent translation of it, and this will become a start for your many other important books to appear in Japanese hereafter.
? SECTIONII: 1936-66
125
I am sorry I must tell you that they cannot pay you for it, because the book will be of limited edition in a very small number.
it.
I should be very much grateful, if you would be good enough to agree to
Very sincerely yours, Kitasono Katue
128: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound & Dorothy Pound
Printed PC-1 1649 1-chome-nishi, Magomemachi, Otaku, Tokyo. 1 January 1953. (Two cards postmarked: 21 December 1952 and 1 January 1953, to Ezra Pound and Dorothy Pound] ^W -pv ^tl-,
129: Katue Kitasono to Ezra Pound TLS-l Tokio. 17 November 1953
Dear Ezra POUND,
h [A Happy New Year]
I am very sorry that I haven't written to you such a long time.
The other day Michael Reck visited me (I hadn't seen him since Febru- ary, and I was surprised to see him speak Japanese so fluently) and I showed him the typescript of the TRAXINIAI. He consented to take it to Mr. Ito Michio. He will soon come and tell me about it.
It was my greatest impression that I could catch the aspect of Noh in so vivid words and lively expression of you in Dxe Translations o/ E. P.
Now I am reading Lewis' V^oiimg W\\\.
VOU CLUB Katue YJiiasono
Ever yours, YAiasono Katue
? 126 SECTIONII: 1936-66
130: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono TLS-1 [n. p. ] 30 January 1959
Dear and respected Kit-Kat, after many ages, and perfidies etc.
There seems at last a chance of getting decent edition of the Odes, with both seal character and the reproduction of the magnificent text you sent me years ago. Have you any idea what edition it is? I can send photo to refresh your memory. Beautiful characters, and the Odes without the notes, as they are in Mao etc.
I dare say Vanni sends you his printed matter?
Both the german and Italian versions of TRAXINIAI are in process of production (stage) as well as print, but it will need the Minoru or Japanese technique to get any result near to what I or Sophokles could get much pleasure from.
I recall, as ever Lady Gregory, when a north english company had mur- dered The King's Threshold; "An oi tell him whoi doesn't he wroite comedies, an den he would have a few pleasant moments whoile he's in deh teeYayter! "
I tell him why doesn't he write comedies and then he would have a few pleasant moments while he is in the theatre.
Projected edition of the Odes will have two texts in Chinese, my american and Scarfoglio's Italian, and the indication of the sound (which of course wont indicate much, but at least the number of syllables in the original, and the tone variation).
131: Ezra Pound to Katue Kitasono
TLS-l Hotel Italia, Rapallo, Italy. 12 June 1959
Dear Kit Kat
I am, as you can see from post mark, back in Rapallo where I rec'd your first letter, and where there is still a file of BroJetto.
TRAXINIAI is being done in Berlin, heaven knows how, but some- one has said it will take them 50 years to see what has been done. I still believe that only a Noh company can do it properly.
Ever yours Ezra Pound
? SECTIONII: 1936-66 127
1 haven't learned kana yft. Pages of the magnificent text of the Odes that you sent have been photographed in the not extinguished hope of a decent edition, seal, that square character, my english and Scarfoglio's italian. but. . . .
It might help if some critic not in terror of the american "cultural" (bless your heart) "foundations," should animadvert on the delays in transmission and the spirit of Harvard and other universities. Beauson Tseng has approved the translation, if you know who he is, or if there is any survival of Tcheu's lament: they ought to be like brothers, they read the same books.
Kripalani has just sent me his translation of Tagore's novels, and some Gandhi.
Books are kept in the Warsaw cellarage. More editors might follow your method of printing a few words in the language of the books they mention, which would at least tell the ignorant alien what they consider worth notice.
I have enough superfluous bone (calcination) in my neck to sup- ply a giraffe, and it has been slowing me down.
I don't imagine the /apan Times has been returned to the peo- ple who had it before my untimely note on Matsuoka? Or that other than aesthetic ideas have much more outlet in Tokyo than anywhere else? I suspect you have forgotten your english during the past 20 years. At the same time one might manage more lively exchange of correspondence. Young Reck must know enough Japanese to help at it.
I don't think you have ever mentioned Junzaburo, or Iwasaki. Af- ter success of TRAXINIAI in the german translation (Eva Hesse) there are requests for Noh, for performance in Germany.
The charming member of your other profession, who had 200 vari- eties of roses in his Rapallo (quite small) garden has passed into whatev- er non-Bhudist realm of non- or not-non existence. There is a spate of building, in I suspect, very unstable material, and less beach open to the unorganized public. The gulf still contains water and the mountains not greatly altered by bombing raids d'antan.
Very interesting fotos in one VOU that I have passed on to the Oberti, who will, I think, send you Ana etc. , they and their friend Carre- ga will take note of anything your friends send them. Does anyone want a copy of Boris' bilingual Book of the Dead? No use my sending Scheiwiller notices if he has already done so. Mary's Kagekiyo has gone into another large edition. What does Japan do with TV?
? 128 SECTIONII: 1936-66
Italian phrase heard recently: memories are the white hairs of the heart. From wife of old tennis pal of mine now invalid.
benedictions, Ez. P.
132: Katue Kitasono to Mary de Rachewiltz
TLS-l 1-26, 5 chome, Akasaka, Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan. 28 November 1966
Dear Mary de Rachewiltz,
Your book of poems, Di Riflesso, reached me safely passing through many hands from my former address. I cannot read your poems, because I don't know Italian language, but visually I can see that these poems are very nice and beautiful. Many thanks.
I lost many of my books I loved during the war, among which the text of your story is included. Very, very sorry!
with best wishes, Kitasono Katue
P. S. I also thank you for the copy of your fine work of translation, ll Teatro Giapponese No.
? III POUND'SPOST-WORLDWARII CONTACTSWITH JAPAN: 1956-68
In this section are collected five letters of Ryozo Iwasaki to Ezra Pound, seven letters of Pound to Iv^asaki, one letter of Shiro Tsunoda to Pound, a fragment of Pound's letter to Tsunoda, one letter of Pound to Tomoji Okada, and one letter of Pound to the Librarian, University of Virginia.
The first book-length collection of Pound's poems in Japanese appeared in 1956, the culmination of years of dedicated effort of Ryozo Iwasaki (1908-76), then Professor of English Literature at Keio University. A scholar working in classical Greek and Latin literature, Iwasaki provided an amply annotated translation which immediately won very favorable notice.
In his letter to Pound, Iwasaki enclosed a poem by his colleague, Junzaburo Nishiwaki, who had written the "Preface" to Iwasaki's transla- tion. On reading the poem, Pound suggested to Iwasaki that Nishiwaki be recommended to the Swedish Academy as a Nobel Prize candidate. This note from Pound, though brief, created a tremendous impact on the Japanese literary world.
Since his undergraduate days, Iwasaki had been associated with var- ious literary circles, and had written a number of critical essays. In 1927, a year after he entered Keio University, he joined four other young people to start the magazine, Butai Shinsei [New Voices on Theatre). And in 1931, with other members of the University, he launched another magazine. Shin Mita-ha [New Mita Group).
His interest in Pound goes back to his early years. In 1934 he wrote "Poetics of Mr. Pound" for the Shiho [Poetics) edited by Shiro Murano and Azuma Kondo. He also contributed essays on modern poets including Pound to the poetry journal, Shinryodo [New Territory), around 1937.
During World War II his main concern was directed toward classical Roman literature. He published A History of Roman Literature in 1940 and Selected Works of Cicero in 1943. But after the war, his interest in American literature was revived. He wrote "Ezra Loomis Pound" for Seminars on Contemporary Poetry (Sogensha) in 1950. He then published the transla- tion, Ezra Pound: Selected Poems (Arechi Shuppan, 1956). In October, 1965, Iwasaki spoke over the radio (NHK) on Ezra Pound in celebration of his 80th birthday, broadcasting also selected recordings of Pound's own readings. For the poetry magazine, Mugen [Infinity), he wrote three articles:
129
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"The Structure of the Cantos" (August, 1960], "Cock and Snail: Pound and Eliot" (October, 1965), and "Ezra Pound and Cummings" (November, 1967]. [As for his other works on Pound, see Donald Gallup, A Bibliography of Ezra Pound. ] When Iwasaki traveled through Italy on his way to England in 1961, Pound's illness regrettably made it impossible for him to meet the aged poet.
While still in Washington, D. C. , Pound received a letter from another Japanese scholar, Shiro Tsunoda (1922- ], now professor at Obirin Uni- versity. Though Pound was busy at that time, with various people outside the hospital trying to have the court dismiss the indictment against him, he replied providing several answers to Tsunoda's questions on his poetry. It is a pity that, except for one fragment which is printed in the following section, the remainder of the letter was lost.
Tomoji Okada, a retired businessman, wrote Pound offering a correc- tion of a misleading passage in Pound's Introduction to his No translation. Pound had written that, after Fenollosa's sudden death in London, the Japanese government had "sent a warship for his body. " But Okada claimed to know that Fenollosa's ashes had been brought to Japan via the Siberian Railroad. In fact, Okada had asked his friend Yasotaro Kato. who was returning to Japan via Siberia, to carry Fenollosa's ashes to Japan with him. Pound's letter to Okada may reflect his attitude toward history: "I certainly did not invent it. " One may wonder if indeed the ashes were brought back to Japan on a Japanese warship over the Japan Sea. But Tokutaro Shigehisa, who later investigated the matter, suggests that the ashes probably arrived at Tsuruga from Vladivostok on September 19, 1909 on the Hozanmaru of the Osaka Shipping Co. (Tokutaro Shigehisa, "Fenollosa's Ashes and Japan," Comparative Literature, vol. 2, 1959. pp. 83-4. ]
In 1968 when the present editor visited with Pound in Paris, the poet wrote a note to the librarian at the University of Virginia granting permis- sion for access to a microfilm copy of the Fenollosa notebooks. All the notebooks of Fenollosa sent to Pound by Mary Fenollosa were at that time under lock and key, and it would have been impossible otherwise for me to have read them. At the time, Hugh Kenner's microfilm of part of the notebooks had been stored at the library of the University of Virginia.
? SECTIONIII: 1956-68 131
133: Ryozo Iwasaki to Ezra Pound
TLS-4 1-34, Mita, Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan. 30 November 1956
Dear Mr. Pound,
I am sending you the Japanese translation of your poems to-day. It has meant a great deal to me. I have no words to apologize to you for publishing your poems without permission. The Waste Land has been translated by several hands in our country, but "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley" has never been put into Japanese, and some favourable comments to my translation have appeared in Japanese newspapers. But I must confess it was a very difficult task. I wonder what it will seem to you. I want you to tell me what effect it has on you.
I had a very pleasant journey to Kobe the other day, and found that Ernest Fenollosa's lock of hair had been buried at Homyoin, Enjoji Temple in Otsu, near Kyoto. I enclose photographs of the grave, which was built by Mr. Laurence Binyon and other foreigners. The weather was most over- whelmingly lovely. He sleeps among the cedar grove and beautiful ferns by the Lake Biwa (i. e. lute). Vale! Valel
Yours very sincerely, Ryozo Iwasaki
? 132 SECTIONIII: 1956-68
Appendix 1
Contents of Selected Poems of Ezra Pound (Japanese Translation)
Preface by Junzaburo Nishiwaki "Sestina: Altaforte"
"Rome"
"The Garden"
"The Spring"
"Dance Figure"
"Gentildonna"
"To Kalon"
"Ladies"
"After Ch'u Yuan"
"Fan-Piece, for her Imperial Lord" "In a Station of the Metro" "Alba"
"Papyrus"
"To Formianus' Young Lady Friend" "The Lake Isle"
"Epitaphs"
"Homage to Quintus S. F. Christianus" "Moeurs contemporaines (Stele)" "Canto I"
"Canto IV" (abridged)
"Hugh Selwyn Mauberley"
Appendix 2
January in Kyoto
Janus, old man,
Your name is damp and grey and too prolonged A ring to rattle in my verse;
You double-faced, diluted churl of churls,
You corn-dull, poppy-wilted, beaver-brown.
By Junzaburo Nishiwaki
? SECTIONIII: 1956-68 133
You snow-eater, a parasite on roots and berries, Iconoclast of gins and perries,
You're really one of the pariah dogs
Yelping, thrash-worth, at the belated gods.
I knowthedeitieswouldratherinflate
And flow in pipes than in metric odes, but now You suddenly brought us shy myth,
When we, disguised as Zeus and Hermes, went Looking for orchids that will hang oblong and dim At cuckoo-crow at the hell lady's door.
In the Hiei foot-hills by pebbly-purring streams.
We went into a peasant's cottage to see
How one cleans and adorns one's range
With a sprig of rue and a tangle of hips
To honour the bluff god of the kitchen fire.
The old baucis-and-philemon tree rustled its top: "Reverend sirs, you are early. Well now. "
My friend, a Ben Jonson scholar at the university, And a complete parr angler, could speak
The Yase doric: "Look what we've got,
Such lovely slender buds; may we leave
These things with you by this mercury bush,
As we're going to see Emau Convent up there? " Again we went out into loam land, dreaming
Of Angels and pottery crystal-beaming:
This time as tinkers we wandered . . .
Post-orchid journey it will be named.
A redolent trek, there was a smell
Of yellow plum blossom in the turnip fields.
"Who is it walking with you, strangers? "
"It is a woman. "
She is in holy visibility:
That was an old woman with the help of a stick On her way from Shu-gaku-in to Iwakura
To draw out money, the account book on her head, Nicely done up in a peony-patterned cloth Probably to ransom her helen out of peonage.
She had a leer like a boar
And had a stutter like Darley;
? 134 SECTIONIII: 1956-68
But it might be thunder if she chose to parley. Excited by our indignation on the boar ravages,
With fury and frothing she made a Delphic utterance: "It only took them a night to devour
A middlesex acre (as Macaulay says) of your yams; Last year they shot a huge one, but nobody
. "
Could bear him away, so there you are
So saying she glowered at us and passed by.
Now I come to the second nonnes tale:
We greeted the ancress in a most elegant way; Unrobed, aproned, head tonsured as azure as
The kingfisher's wings, sweeping up fallen leaves Among the landscape stones green with moss, Herself indistinguishable from the blue.
"Good morning, Madame Eglantine, may I
See your garden? Wonderful!
And do you happen to know my relation
Who is a prioress living near Kitano-Tenjin? "
"I wouldn't know, sir. But how odd, when I've been Of the same tribe nearly all my life.
Bo tree, that. Very, very rare. "
"Perhaps you could let me have a twig in the spring; I'd like to graft it on a stock . . . mulberry it is. " Enlightenment . . . an entwining of rose and bay. "By all means. Secretum secretorum! "
When we returned full circle to the roots
Of our orchids, we maundered to sanctify
Fertility . . . magic jabber . . . over cups of tea.
The wife decanted golden mead to immortalize
Our chats and our pseudo-godliness, but we tried Hard to hide our mortality . . .
Biographical Note: J. Nishiwaki was born in 1896. He graduated at Keio University but later studied English literature at Oxford University. He is the author of a number of books on English and European languages and literature and has translated Eliot's The Waste Land into Japanese. He has published several books of poems and although his output has been small, he is one of the most influential of modern poets in Japan to-day. He is at present Professor of English literature at Keio University.
. .
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135
134: Ezra Pound to Ryozo Iwasaki
TLS-2 [Pmk: WASHINGTON D. C. ) 28 December 1956
Dear Ryozo Iwasaki
It has been a most delightful Xmas, and I have you to thank for two of the pleasant surprises. Your elegantly printed "Mauber-
ley" {&- other poems), and J. N. 's Janus Poem, the latter most opportune, as Stock has started a magazine which badly needs it.
