From 1946 to 1948, many magazines for children, such as Ginga [Galaxy], Akatombo [Red Dragonfly], Kodomo no Hiroba [Children's Square], and Shônen Shôjo [Boys and Girls], were established. Many poets contributed to these magazines. In 1946, Saiô Yaso, who began writing poems for children before the World War II, published Saijô Yaso Shônen Shishû [Poems For Children by Saijô Yaso]. In 1948, collections of poems of new kind as Aoi Kokuban [A Blue Blackboard] by Maruyama Kaoru from Nyû Furendosha, or Mirai [Future] by Ôki Minoru from Saera Shobô, were published. Satô Hachirô (1903 - 1973), who had studied poetry writing under Saijô, was influenced by these collections, and made his own Shônen Shishû. While Maruyama and Ôki's poems were free verse about the future, Satô's were in fixed form about Japanese nature, culture, and children. 41 poems out of 64 were already in Bokura no Shishû [Our Book of Poems] published in 1935. The others were written after the war.
Titles like "Haru Chikazuku" [Spring Is Coming], "Gogatsu
no Uta" [Song of May], "Aki no Yoru" [Autumn Night], "Yuki
Furu Hi ni" [On a Snowy Day] show that these poems are about the seasons.
In "Yappari Haru wa" [Spring Has Come with No Doubt], the author
saw the heat haze on a pussy willow, and realized that spring had come.
In some pieces, "Boku" [I] talks about his younger brother. "Ouma
no Senaka ni Kirigirisu" [A Grasshopper on the Back of a Horse] tells
a story of a grasshopper and a horse that escape from his house at night.
Many pieces written after the war like "Shin Gakki" [New Term],
"Sotsugyô Chikai Hi ni" [Just before Graduation], "Tomodachi
no Uta" [A Song of Friends], are about school life. Simple pen and
ink illustrations by Yamamoto Izumi show the everyday life of children
at that time.
The pieces in this volume written before show the universal aspect
of his poems. The usage of dialect and rhythmical meter are also characteristic
of his work. |
