The field of poetry for children became active around 1965. It tended
to succeed prewar poems which were very serious and realistic or lyric.
Critical against such a tradition of poetry, Mado Michio (1909- ) published
Tempura Piri Piri, a collection of twenty-nine poems for children and created a completely new world of poetry for children. He also modernized the genre.
Mado’s poetry is humorous, nonsensical and entertaining with lots
of word play. “Inu ga Aruku” [A Dog is Walking] is a rumination about
putting different kinds of bells on the paw of a dog so that one may know
how each paw moves, because when a dog walks each bell would respectively
“chirin, koron, karan, poron” (tinkle, clink, ting, or jingle). “Ka-ba-no-u-do-n-ko”
[Hippo’s Flour] is reading “Ko-n-do-u-no-ba-ka” (“Kondo is a fool”
in Japanese) backward. In “Shimauma” [Zebra] a zebra is “in a cage of
its own making.” Mado’s idea is unique and the sound of his words is
amusing. He even creates new words.
Mado’s poetry is also imaginative and philosophical. In “Ishikoro”
[A Pebble] a pebble looks up into the sky remembering the days when it
was a star. In “Hibari” [A Skylark] a skylark sings in the field wondering
whether its image is reflected in the mirror of blue sky. In “Chikyû
no Yôji” [Business of the Earth] a bead falling out of a hand onto
a cushion stops at a hole in a tatami mat, and relaxes as if it had finished
the business of the earth. “Tsukemono no Omosi” [Weight on Pickles] describes
a personified weight stone from various points of view and questions its
true nature. “Inago” [A Locust] captures a tense moment between “I”
and a locust which is looking at “me” “leaving the engine running to
fly away anytime.” It makes readers think about life and death.
Eighteen poems have Sugita Yutaka’s modern two-colored illustrations.
All the poems were newly written except seven poems which had already been
made public. Many of Mado’s poems, including “Inu ga Aruku,” “Tsukemono
no Omoshi,” “Tempura Piri Piri,” and “Inago” have been adopted in
elementary school textbooks since 1971, giving children opportunities to
enjoy poetry.
|
