The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 15 | Issue 2 | Number 5 | Jan 15, 2017

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Disaster Poetry from Ōfunato

Arai Takako

Translated by Jeffrey Angles

Map of Japan. Map data from Google.

Abstract:The city of Ōfunato is located in northeasternJapan, in the southeastern portion of IwatePrefecture. It lies on the Sanriku coast and is afine example of a ria coastline with severalprongs of mountainous ridges that extendoutward into the sea. The coast is home toIwate’s largest port, and houses several well-developed industries, including industriesrelated to fishing, marine products processing,and cement production.

The impact of the 3.11 triple disaster ofearthquake, tsunami and nuclear powermeltdown is told here in visual images and thepoetry by Arai Takako.

Ōfunato and the 2011 disasters

The city of Ōfunato is located in northeasternJapan, in the southeastern portion of IwatePrefecture. It lies on the Sanriku coast and is afine example of a ria coastline with severalprongs of mountainous ridges that extendoutward into the sea. The coast is home toIwate’s largest port, and houses several well-developed industries, including industriesrelated to fishing, marine products processing,and cement production. On the outskirts of thecity limits are Anatōshiiso and the Go-ishiCoast, which because of their dramatic rockformations and islands, are well known for theirnatura l beauty . Ōfunato i s home toapproximately 40,000 people.

Anatōshiiso. The name of this site means

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“pierced rocky shoreline.” Photo by theauthor, June 2016.

Go-ishi Coast. The name comes from the factthat the small islands look like stones used inthe game of go (go-ishi). Photo by the author,June 2016.

Map of the Kesen region, which straddlesIwate Prefecture in the north and MiyagiPrefecture in the south. Map data fromGoogle.

Ōfunato, along with the city of Rikuzentakataand the town of Sumita, are part of what isknown as the Kesen Region. The speech usedthere has a high degree of regional distinctnessand is known as Kesengo (literally “thelanguage of Kesen”). In fact, there is anincreasing push, which has been spearheadedby Yamauchi Harutsugu, a medical doctor wholives in Ōfunato, to have Kesengo recognizednot just as a minor dialect of Japanese, but as adistinctive language with its own rich historyand tradition.

Ōfunato suffered tremendous damage duringthe earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011.According to the website of the ŌfunatoMunicipal Government, a quake just shy of 6.0on the Richter Scale was recorded downtownand the nearby areas, and soon afterward, adevastating tsunami of approximately tenmeters tall assaulted the coastline.1 In Sanriku-chō, one outlying area of the city, the tsunamireached the staggering height of twenty-threemeters. The commercial district in the centercenter of Ōfunato was destroyed, and the restof the town was left seriously damaged.

By December 2016, at the time when thisarticle was completed, the official death countfrom the 2011 disasters was 15,893 peopledead, 2,556 people missing, and 6,152 peopleinjured.2 Of those, 340 of the dead and 79 ofthe missing came from Ōfunato.3 2,791households were completely destroyed, but ifone were also to include the numbers of housesthat were classified as “partially destroyed,”then the number of households that sustaineddamage rises to 5,582.4

About a month and a half after the disasters, I

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visited the city of Kesennuma, located in MiyagiPrefecture, a bit to the south of Ōfunato. I wasthere to help clean up earthquake-ravagedhomes, but the destruction that I witnessedthere is difficult for me to put into words evennow, after all of this time.

Kesennuma soon after the disasters. Photo bythe author, May 2011.

Kesennuma soon after the disasters. Photo bythe author, May 2011.

Years have gone by since then. Rubble is stillbeing removed throughout the region, and theground beneath laid bare. Earthen mounds are

being constructed, and large enterprises aremoving ahead with plans to construct facilitiesfor commercial use. Homes are being rebuilt,and victims placed in temporary housing arestill in the process of trying to find permanenthousing elsewhere. According to the IwatePrefectural Reconstruction Bureau’s Division ofLiving Support (Iwate-ken Fukkō-kyokuSeikatsu Shien-ka), as of March 2016, therewere still 1,691 people in Ōfunato living intemporary housing—a total of 781 households.Fortunately, through various efforts, thisnumber had decreased by November 2016 to808 people living in temporary housing—a totalof 359 households.5

Meeting room at one of the temporaryhousing facilities in Ōfunato. Photo by theauthor, November 2014.

My first trip to Ōfunato was in November 2014,a little more than three and a half years afterthe disasters. I had been making plans with theMuseum of Contemporary Japanese Poetry,Tanka, and Haiku (Nihon Gendai ShiikaBungakukan) located in the city of Kitakami inIwate Prefecture to start a project that we hadlabeled, “Words to Stir the Heart: The Voices ofŌfunato.” The plan was to go around to themeeting rooms in the temporary housingfacilities and work with the local people to

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translate the tanka poems of the poet IshikawaTakuboku (1886-1912) into the local languageof Ōfunato—into Kesengo, in other words. Assome readers may know, Takuboku is one ofthe great tanka poets of modern Japaneseliterature. He was a native of Iwate Prefecture,but his poetry was written in the language ofmodern Japan—the kind of increasinglystandardized Japanese that would come to beseen as the language of the Japanese citizen. Inother words, he wrote in Nihongo, “thelanguage of Japan,” not Kesengo “the languageof Kesen” or any other dialect. In working withthe inhabitants of the temporary housing andtheir neighbors to translate Takuboku intoKesengo, our project aimed to help participantsrediscover the unique charm of the language ofthe northeast and to help share that morebroadly with the rest of Japan. As of December2016, the “Words to Stir the Heart” project hasheld nine meetings, and we have reached theinitial goal of translating one hundred differenttanka into Kesengo. We are currently movingforward with efforts to publish them in bookform.　

Each time I visit, I see the changes in the city.The hotels in the center of the town, whichwere rapidly patched up after the disasters,have been completely rebuilt one after another.At the same time, people are criticizing thecurrent plan to erect embankments againstfuture floods, saying that the embankments aretoo large in scale. What should be therelationship between nature and mankind?Between the sea and humanity? The debatesrage on.

Reconstruction near the port of Ōfunato.Photo by the author, November 2014.

Reconstruction near the port of Ōfunato.Photo by the author, February 2016.

Disaster poetry by the poets of Ōfunato

The Ōfunato Poetry Society

One of the big benefits of this project was thatthrough it, I got to know many poets living inŌfunato. While drinking beer together,enjoying ochakko (which is Kesengo for“snacks”), and riding with them in their cars,

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we talked about all sorts of things—not just thedisasters, but also our families, our jobs, ourpoetry, and the culture and customs of theKesen region. They are now the strongestsupporters of our “Words to Stir the Heart”project, and one of the reasons that I now lookforward to heading up to the northeast isbecause I want to see them again. In theremainder of this essay, I would like tointroduce some of the poetry written byŌfunato poets about the disasters. All of thiswas material that I discovered through workingtogether with them on our project.

Japan is a big place—it might sound silly for meto say this, but when I encountered the work ofthe Ōfunato poets, that is one of the things thatstruck me. Their work is almost completelyunknown in Tokyo and elsewhere, if it is knownat all. Over the last few years, there have beenmany people speaking and arguing about therole and language of poetry produced in timesof disaster. We’ve seen popular journals andliterary magazines taking up those questions.There have been anthologies of disaster-relatedliterature. Sometimes they feature local poetsfrom the northeast, but I feel that I only gaineda real sense of what they were doing when Imet the Ōfunato poets in person.

The first time we met for the project, we met inOkirai, Sanriku-chō. We held our event in theSugishita Temporary Housing Complex. I wasin the common room, putting away the CDplayer afterwards when someone handed me abooklet and said, “Please read this.” It wasNomura Miho, one of our participants. The titleof the booklet was The Poets of 3-11: The Locusof the Heart (3.11 no shijin-tachi: Kokoro nokiseki), and it was published by an organizationcalled the Ōfunato Poetry Association (ŌfunatoShi no Kai).6 In it, I found Nomura’s poem“Daffodil” (Suisen). Here it is in both anEnglish translation and the original Japanese.

小さな白い水仙を赤い南天の実にそえて活ける部屋が暖かくなってくるとほどけるように香りが広がってくる水仙は地中海沿岸が原産国というシルクロードを旅して東アジアに渡って日本の浜辺にたどり着いたのだろうか三、一一あの未曾有の災害にも耐え抜いて厳寒の空の下緑の葉を凛と伸ばし可憐な白い花びらの中に金の盃を抱きその盃に陽光が満ちるように輝く幸せに溢れるときが必ずやって来るだろう

I place a small white daffodilAlongside a sprig of nandinacovered with red berriesAs the room grows warmTheir aroma spreadsAs if unravellingThey say the daffodilComes from along theMediterranean coastsI wonder if it travelledAcross the Silk RoadTo East AsiaReaching the coasts of JapanMarch 11The flower made it throughthis unprecedented disasterBeneath the bitterly cold skyIt grew its green leaves withso much dignityAnd now holds in its daintywhite petalsA golden cupSurely a time will comeWhen that cupWill overflowWith sparkling happinessAs if filled with sunlight

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The Poets of 3-11: The Locus of the Heart,edited by the Ōfunato Poetry Association.Figure 1: Nomura Miho

I was taken by surprise. I hadn’t realized thatamong the participants in our project there

would be poets who wrote their own originalworks. This poem, describing the petals of aflower embracing a beautiful little cup,impressed me. I felt as if a sudden burst of lightwas washing the scales from my eyes.

And then, there was the remarkable poem “MyGoodness, You’re Alive...” (Igide da gaa) byKinno Yukie, in which she reproduces the kindsof conversations one heard after the disaster,all in the local Kesengo language. (Thefollowing English translation doesn’t attempt torender the dialect into any specific dialect ofEnglish, but I encourage readers interested inhearing the incredible musicality andintonation of the original to listen to the soundfile. In it, Kinno reads her own work.)

Figure 2: Kinno Yukie

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あんだー生きてたがぁー熱い抱擁で涙す

る家も無(ね)エ部落も無エ

体一つだ　なんにも無エあんだー

パンツと靴下けらい

お握り一つ　パン一つ

有難ァぐ食ってる

この歳で一から出直しだぁうん、うん

うん冷たい手を握り

しめてあんだばかりで

無エ命あったべ

命あったんだから

頑張っぺえなぁ！　なぁ！

なあ！

You…My goodness, you’re alive…

We weep in a warmembrace

We’ve got no homes, novillage

Just our own bodies,nothing else

YouGive us some underpants

and socksA single rice ball, a single

loaf of breadWe’ll eat them gratefullyWe’re starting all over at

this ageYeah, yeah…That’s right

We take one another’s coldhands

You’re not aloneYou’re alive, right?

We’re aliveSo let’s keep going

Yeah! Yeah!That’s right!

The warm blood of life seems to be flowingthrough these words. All along the coast, whenpeople found one another immediately after thedisaster, they would greet each other with thewords, “You... My goodness, you’re alive...”(Andaa... Igide da gaa...) as in the first lines ofthis poem. Reading between the lines, onesenses the shadows of the 20,000 people whowere not able to mutter these words. I was alsostruck by the powerful phrase “Give me someunderpants and socks” (Pantsu to kuzusutakerai). In this one, condensed phrase, onesenses how desperate the situation was for allthose people who managed somehow to escapethe tsunami with nothing more than their ownbodies and the clothes on their backs.

Kinno Yukie, the same poet who wrote thepoem I just quoted, wrote the following poementitled “God” (Kami-sama) in response to theCatholic church’s public call for prayers. Once

again, Kinno writes in the vivid, localdialect—an important strategic choice thatallows her to quite literally give voice to thebattered and dispirited people throughout theregion.

津波の時　おらの命助けてくれて有難う放心状態の空っぽの命これからなじょすればいいんだ砂浜におかれた蟻んこのようだ右も左も東も西も何もわかんねぇ親戚の人は四人死んだおらなじょすればいいんだ教えてけろ息吐くたび助けて助けてと無言の声が鼻から出て行く神様おらに何しろといってるんだわかんねぇわかんねぇもっとぎっちり側にくっついてけろぎっちりくっついて教えてけろわらすに語るように教えてけろせっかくもらった命だもの大事にすっから教えてけろ大事にすっから教えてけろ

Thank you for saving mewhen the tsunami cameSaving my empty, absent-minded lifeBut what am I supposed todo now?I’m like a tiny ant on thesandy beachI don’t know my left from myright, my east from my westFour of my relatives aredeadWhat am I supposed to do?Tell meWith each breathUnspoken voices pour frommy nose--Help! Help!GodWhat are you telling me todo?I don’t get it, I don’t get itCome closer and stay by mysideStay by me and tell meTell me as if you werespeaking to a childAfter all, I’ve been given thislifeI’ll take good care of it, sotell meI’ll take good care of it, sotell me

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In the breath that flows from the narrator’snostrils, she hears the cries of the dead callingout for help. She hears and understands theirsilent plea, but is at a complete loss as to whatto do. She calls out to God, hoping that he willcome closer, almost as if she hopes that hisproximity and direction will keep her frombeing carried away by the spirits of thedeceased. This poem teaches us that the spiritsof the dead seem to be lodged deep within thebodies of the surviving, moving aimlesslythrough them. The dead are within the living.In the disaster zone, the dead and the living aretogether in visceral ways.

Nakamura Sachiko and Tomiya Hideo

As we planned the second meeting of ourproject, we sent some a flier and a letter to KanChieko, the head of the Ōfunato PoetryAssociation. She came to the SawagawaTemporary Housing facility where we held ourmeeting, and there introduced me to NakamuraSachiko, who had been in charge of editing thebooklet that I had received on my previous trip.

Nakamura, known by her nickname “Sat-chan,”is of the same generation as I am. Since wefirst met, I have spent time with her on almostevery one of my trips to the northeast. Shemarried when she was quite young, gave birthto th ree ch i l d ren , and i s a l ready agrandmother. She sees the real world in a cool-headed way, and in her gaze, I sense calmmaturity.

Nakamura told me that when the members ofthe Ōfunato Poetry Association wrote the worksthat were collected in The Poets of 3-11,everyone was united in their desire to preservethe dignity of the dead. The mountains ofrubble and refuse everywhere were, in fact,also cruel piles scattered with corpses of thelocal residents—the same people that weretheir relatives, friends, and neighbors… Eachone of the poets was clear that they didn’t want

to sully the memories of those deaths. As theywrote their work and published the booklet, nodoubt they were keenly aware of the frictionthat arises between writing about somethingand laying bare for all the world to seesomething that they cared about deeply.

The coast of Akasaki-chō in Ōfunato is knownfor oyster cultivation, and Nakamura, whoworked in that industry with her husband’sparents, referred to the sea as a “field”(hatake). The tsunami, however, had destroyedtheir oyster beds, and after deliberation, herfather-in-law had decided to give up thebusiness. She told me that the painful decisioncame as her own father was in the hospitaldying. She describes the circumstances in herpoem “Alongside a Certain Death” (Aru shi nokatawara de).

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震災のさなかようやく長い夜が明け父は旅立った選ぶことも選ばないこともできずにひとり残された私は混乱と疲労の病室で息を殺していた慰安室は次々と運ばれてくる犠牲者のためにあり止まったままのエレベータートリアージを待つ行列避難者で溢れるロビー電話も車も使えない一時間で戻ると約束してその変わり果てた町をいくつもの悲しみの中を無言で歩く海と陸の境目に残った地震で崩れた部屋に薄い布団を敷き真新しいシーツで包み写真立てを捜して約束の時間はとっくに過ぎていてだらだらと続く坂道を上り町を見下ろす病院の五階の奥のつめたい父の頬に触れていつになるか分らないという死亡診断書のために薄暗い階段を下りてまた上がっては下りて昨日と変わらないはずの外界の眩しさに戸惑い思えば誰もがみな喉がからからで遺族の悲嘆も空腹に泣く幼子たちも自然あいての戦場の膨れ上がる雑踏に紛れてゆくわたしはまだ取り残された死の傍らにいる

Right in the middle of the disastersThe long night finally came to anendMy father set out on his journeyUnable to chooseUnable not to choose eitherLeft behind all aloneIn a hospital room of turmoil andexhaustionI held my breathThe mortuary roomWas for the sacrificial victimsbrought in one after anotherThe elevator was still stoppedA procession waiting for the triageThe lobby overflowing withrefugeesNeither telephones nor carsworkingI promised to return in an hourI walked without a wordThrough the utterly transformedtownThrough so much sadnessIn a room ruined by the quakeAt the border of the sea and landI spread out a thin mattressWrapped up a brand new sheetLooked for a stand for thememorial photoIt took much longer than the hourI said I’d be goneI walked up the long, gentlysloping streetAnd in back of the fifth floorLooking down over the townI touched my father’s cold cheekI went down the gloomy staircaseFor the death certificateThat would be issued who knowswhenI climbed up and down the stairsagainConfused by the brightness of theoutside worldWhich must have been no differentthan yesterdayCome to think of itEveryone was completely thirstyThe grief of those who were leftbehindAnd the cries of the hungrychildrenGet lost in the crush that swells upOn the battlefield with natureStill I am alongsideDeath left behind

Unable to get a death certificate in the midst ofso much confusion, the body of her fathergrows colder and colder; meanwhile, the bodies

of the people killed by the tsunami are carriedin one after another. Moreover, the hospitalwas running so desperately short of materialsthat they asked family members of the victimsto bring sheets to wrap the bodies of theirloved ones. It is difficult to imagine writing thispoem unless one actually lived through thedisasters oneself. In her volley of crisp words,Nakamura conveys the weighty importance oftime as she deals head-on with her own griefand that of the town where she lives. As shepushes the jumble of objects in her disorderedroom to the side and spreads out somebedding, she prepares the sheet which she willuse to wrap her father’s body. The image of thefresh, new sheet in the midst of so muchconfusion is striking.

The water supply did not work for many days.In one of her e-mails, Nakamura told me soonafter the disasters, everyone was thirsty so theycollected rainwater and drank it with greatrelish. Even if they did come in contact withone of the vehicles that traveled through theregion to update residents and shareinformation, their radios were just broadcastinginformation about evacuation centers andsafety concerns. She said that they didn’t knowa thing about the meltdown taking place atFukushima. That was the situation thateveryone was in when she writes, “Come tothink of it / Everyone was completely thirsty.”

Below is one stanza of Nakamura’s poem“Seeds of Tomorrow” (Ashita no tane), whichappears in a small collection called Songs ofSupport for Sanriku’s Recovery (TachiagaruSanriku e no ōenka).7

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暗黒の街を最初に照らしたのは信号機だったまじめに明るく馬鹿正直がいいと声が聞こえた（後略）

The first thing to illuminateThe dark townWere the traffic lightsSoberlyBrightlyHonest to the point offoolishnessI heard someone say […]

The power was out of course. Every light in thecenter of Ōfunato was broken, plunging thetown into a series of pitch-black nights. As thepoem says, the first lights to come back onwere the traffic lights... The narrator recountsoverhearing someone talking about the trafficlights performing their job soberly, brightly,and in a fashion that is honest to the point ofabsurdity. There is darkness in this, perhapseven irony.

Nakamura also writes novels and children’sliterature. She does not only write about herpersonal experiences. She is a writer with areal ability to bring together scraps of newsand documents to form narratives. Her story“The Bear of Mt. Nametoko and Matsuyoshi”(Nametoko-yama no kuma to Matsuyoshi)which appeared in Issue 66 of the literaryjournal Literature of the North (Kita nobungaku) gives a fresh and elaborate portrait ofa hunter, and is a richly rewarding read.8 I feelincredibly fortunate to have suddenly comeacross a writer like her during my trips toŌfunato.

Tomiya Hideo

I would like to introduce one more poet fromthe Ōfunato Poetry Society, Tomiya Hideo. Oneof his essays appears in the collection Necktiesand Edo-mae (Nekutai to edo-mae), edited bythe Japan Essayist Club. Subsequently, hishome and the house he rented out—both ofwhich were located close to ŌfunatoPort—were lost to the tsunami.9 There havebeen big changes in the lives of everyone in theregion, but Tomiya’s l ife underwent ap a r t i c u l a r l y s e v e r e a n d d r a m a t i ctransformation. After the disasters, he lived intemporary housing in Sakari-chō, where hecontinued writing, but he earned his livelihoodby clearing rubble and working nights at ahealth center for senior citizens. After yearsliving in temporary housing, finally in theautumn of 2016, he moved into a publicbuilding created for the disaster victims, andthere, he has finally been able to embark on a

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more stable, comfortable life.

Below is an excerpt from his poem TowardTomorrow (Ashita ni mukatte).

津波で流された自宅跡初めて見た時不思議と涙は出なかった両親の位牌さえ持ち出せずかろうじて助かった命でも亡き両親が救ってくれたと思うお盆の墓参りで不思議な現象を目撃した以前の地震で少しずれていた墓石が大地震で元通りになっていたのだ環境が変わると生き方も変わる避難先を親戚宅からカメリアホールへ移して避難所で多くの人たちと知り合えた喜び盛小学校の仮設住宅に決まり引越し前夜は最後の避難者になったたった一人で大広間に泊まった心細さ大きく変わった人生観がれき撤去の仕事に就いて夏の暑さにも冬の寒さにも耐えながらペンよりも重いものを持ったことがない私がスコップを手に働いている甥や姪たちにとって私はヒーローなのだ（中略）これ以上のどん底はないから後は希望を持って前へ進むだけなのだ（後略）

When I first saw what littlewas leftOf my home washed away bythe tsunamiStrangely, I didn’t shed a tearUnable to carryout myparents’ memorial tabletsI barely escaped with my ownlifeBut I think it was my deadparents that saved meDuring the Bon Festival, Iwitnessed something oddOur gravestone, which hadshifted during a previousearthquake,Returned to its rightful placewhen the big one cameChange environments andyour life changes tooWhen I moved my refuge froma relative’s home to CameliaHallI felt such joy at finding somany friends thereThey decided to use SakariElementary School astemporary housingI was the last evacuee left thenight before the moveSuch loneliness sleeping therein the large hall all aloneMy views on life changed somuchI took a job clearing rubbleAs I suffered through thesummer heat and winter coldI, who had never heldanything heavier than a pen,Worked with a shovel in handTo my niece and nephew, Iwas a hero […]There are no depths lowerthan thisSo the only thing to do is holdout hope and keep movingforward […]

Some time ago, Nakamura, Tomiya, and I haddinner together at a Chinese restaurant. Hetook our hands in his and said, “It’s beendecades since I held a flower in each hand.” Icouldn’t help thinking what a kind man he is,but with a small show of embarrassment, weapologized saying, “Sorry we’re such dried upflowers.” After participating in the secondmeeting of the “Words to Stir the Heart”project, Tomiya wrote warmly about that nightin an essay he published in the Tōkai News(Tōkai shinpō). That evening too, as we werehaving beers together, he spoke encouraginglyabout our project saying, “The people thatstayed on afterwards said that they found itreally interesting.” But then he suddenlychanged the subject. With a smile lingeringunchanged on his face, he told us, “I’ve beendiagnosed with depression.”

In his poem, Tomiya mentions the abject depthsto which he has fallen. It is difficult for me toascertain exactly all of the feelings that arecontained within the word “depths”… In fact,when I first read The Poets of 3-11, I foundmyself thinking that perhaps if more of thelines didn’t conclude with words like “hope”(kibō), “smiles” (egao), and “hang in there”(ganbaru ) , the poems would be moreinteresting. After all, I am a writer, and as Iread, I find myself slipping into those questionsabout the craft of wri t ing—avoidingstereotypical language and the like… However,as I got to know these writers and found myselfdeveloping a relationship little by little withŌfunato, even if only as a visitor to the region, Ibegan to realize the depth of feeling andimplication that was contained in theserelatively commonplace words. If anything, Iwas the one who was not able to appreciate thedepth that they contained. When Tomiyaspeaks about needing hope, he reflects thedepression, hopelessness, and desperation hefeels. Only after meeting him could I begin tounderstand that it was precisely because he

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was feeling such boundless despair that heturned it around and dared to speak of hope.With this realization, I began to understandhow essential it was for people like him to holdon to the idea that there would be a recoveryone day.

Meeting Kinno Takako

Nakamura introduced me to another poet aswell, Kinno Takako who belongs to anotherpoetry group in Ōfunato known as the AkanePoetry Society (Akane Shi no Kai). (She is notrelated to Kinno Yukie, the poet mentionedearlier.)10 In August 2015, she self-published abook of poetry entitled Kerria Flowers(Yamabuki).11 When she contributed to theKesengo translations in our “Words to Stir theHeart” project, she did so with such vigor that Ihad assumed that she was probably in herseventies, but when I saw the biographical noteincluded in her book of poetry, I was surprisedto find that she was older than that—she wasborn in 1932.

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Kerria Flowers by Kinno TakakoKinno Takako

Kinno’s father was one of the first people tocultivate oysters at Akasaki-chō Aza Atohamaalong the seashore, but because he passedaway at a young age, her mother worked tosupport her through needlework and othersmall jobs. Because she is so deeply rooted inthe area, Kinno grew up to become what wemight call a “bilingual” poet—fluent in Kesengoand standard Japanese. (When she speaks withher close friends, I can barely understand aword.) Kinno worked for nearly thirty years asa nursery school teacher in Akasaki-chō.Perhaps because she spent much time readingto the children, but she has rich experiencewith the world of books, and takes greatpleasure in tanka poetry. Below is an excerptfrom the poem “The Slope to the Fields”(Hatake e no sakamichi) in her collection Kerria

Flowers.

戦中戦後の食料難の時代母は畑を耕した庭先に南瓜丘の畑にはさつまいも　馬鈴薯　瓜母は農家に生まれたが畑仕事には慣れていなかった〈肥やし　いっぺぁしねぁばいい作ぁ出ねぁがら〉母は私を相手に肥桶をかつぎ坂道を畑へと往復した背の高い母と父親似の小さい私桶の中で揺れだす肥肩の痛さ　惨めさ　恥ずかしさなぜか笑ってしまった後ろから母の大声「なにぁ　おがし　あるげ」（後略）

During the food shortages during and after the warMother tended the gardenJust outside were pumpkinsOn the hill were sweet potatoes, potatoes, andmelonsMother was born into a farming familyBut wasn’t used to working in the fields“If you don’t give it tons of fertilizerYou won’t get a good crop”Mother and I carried buckets of night soil betweenus on a poleBack and forth on the sloping street to the fieldsMother was tall, I was short like FatherThe refuse splashed out of the bucketMy shoulders ached, I was miserable and ashamedStill for some reason, I laughedFrom behind, Mother spoke loudly“Is something funny?” […]　

When I was a little girl and I visited the homeof my grandmother on her farm, did it smell ofnight soil? In any case, when she was a girl, shehad to carry buckets filled with excrement on apole over her shoulder. We can sense in thepoem how much the swinging buckets affectedher feelings. She writes, “My shoulders ached, Iwas miserable and ashamed / Still for somereason, I laughed.” I can’t help but think thatthe fact that she began writing her ownc r e a t i v e w o r k h a d t o d o w i t h t h a tpersonality—she was the type of girl wholaughed when she was miserable, and wouldremember that laughter for years to come. Inother words, she is a person who keeps her feeton the ground, yet she has so much energy thatshe seems ready to take a gigantic leap fromwherever she happens to be.

Not long ago, after one of our “Words to Stirthe Heart” meetings, I went with Kinno to havelunch at the home of one of her friends whohad just moved from the temporary housingerected after 3.11 to public housing supportedby the prefecture. As we were talking, Kinnosaid that in the old days, they had to work hardto prepare their meals, feeding the flames ofthe stove with sticks. As she said this, she

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puffed up her cheeks, imitating the act ofblowing through a tube of bamboo to feedoxygen to the fire. She recalled the days soonafter she left home to start a new life as a wife.She recounted how a touring choir came toperform in Rikuzentakata City. She wanted sodesperately to go hear them that she left herinfant child with her own mother and set off togo listen to them. Although she initially said tome, “Honestly, I’m not even sure why exactly Iwanted to hear them so much,” I pressed herfurther. It seems that one reason for herenthusiasm was that she wanted to hear the“standard” Japanese (Nihongo) she waslearning in school put to practical use.

Let me share a poem that she wrote in Kesengoabout the 3.11 disasters. The title is “The DayWe Saw Spring” (Har-ar mēda hi). The Englishtranslation doesn’t try to reproduce the dialect,so once again, I encourage readers interestedin the sounds of Kesengo to listen to the soundfile.

なんだべがれぎの中さ黄色い花っこァ咲(せ)ァでだなんと水仙の花っこだがァこんなせまこい間っこがらゆぐ顔(つさ)っこだしたなァあの三月の大津波ァ平和な暮らしばさらってすまったそれがらずものァなにもかも止まったがれぎの山ァ言葉も涙も止めだ空では雪ばりふらせで季節のめぐりまで止まったど思ったそしたれば　なんと小(ち)せァ手っこさ春のせでだまァって動いでだものァいだったんだねァ泥水で固まった土ば押しあげて　押しあげて花っこ咲がせだ水仙おらの眼(まなぐ)ァひかってきた胸でば大ぎくひろがってがれぎの果でまで叫(さが)びだがったァおらァ春みだァしっかどみだァ*せまこい＝狭い、ゆぐ＝よく、ばり＝ばかり、みだァ＝見た、しっかど＝しっかりと

What’s this?In the rubbleA small yellow flowerbloomingMy goodnessA small daffodilIt’s done well to bloomhereIn such a small spotThe huge tsunami inMarchCompletely washed awayour peaceful livesAnd then after thatEverything stoppedThe piles of rubble andrefuseStopped even our wordsand our tearsThe sky dropped nothingbut snowI thought that even theturning of the seasons hadstoppedBut my goodness, even inthe midst of thatSomething was silentlymovingTaking spring into itssmall handsThe daffodils bloomedPushing up, pushing upThrough earth hardenedby filthy waterMy eyesBegin to glistenMy heart begins to swellI want to shout to thefarthest edge of the rubbleI’ve seen springI’ve seen it for sure　

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The first line of the poem, “What’s this?” (Nanda be) suggests that the narrator is squattingdown and looking down. There, barelyemerging from the rubble, is a daffodil, whichblooms as if not missing a beat. This poemreminds me of the poem by Nomura Miho,quoted earlier—after the disasters, it was thesesmall yellow flowers, filled with light, thatannounced the coming of spring to the citizensof Ōfunato.

Each time I listen to the participants in ourworkshops read their translations of IshikawaTakuboku in their local language, I am struckby the sounds of Kesengo. Of course, there aremany voiced consonants (dakuon), but thelanguage is also rich in resonance. In lines like“A small yellow flower blooming” (Kīroihanakko-ar sear deda) or “Something wassilently moving” (Damātte ugoide da monar),Kinno sometimes extends her vowels with asmall a(r) sound, which she represents with thekatakana symbol ァ and which lends anemotional complexity to the line. In poetry, wesometimes talk about reading in the spacebetween the lines, but here, she has created aspace between the individual lettersthemselves, and in that space, we sense heremotion. In that space, the narrator seems totake in a feeling of wonder, and at the sametime, mouths it slowly, clearly so that thereader can take partake of it as well. Throughthose seemingly small sounds, the look of thepoem on the page and the sound of the wordsseem to waver slightly, as if one is looking at avision through shimmering currents of air on ahot day. In the final lines, “I’ve seen spring /I’ve seen it for sure” (Orār haru mi dār /

Shikkado midār), the narrator directs her gazetoward the vision of the daffodil. The sound andmeaning of this beautiful poem work so welltogether that it is almost as if the entire poemis itself one gigantic onomatopoeia.

Although this has only been a whirlwind tour,this essay gives a brief introduction to the workof some of the local poets whom I met inŌfunato. I hope that you will obtain copies oftheir booklets and anthologies to read foryourselves. It seems to me that the disaster-related poetry that they wrote differssignificantly from that written by moremainstream poets in the Tokyo region. (I shouldknow. I am one of the many poets living incentral Japan who wrote about the disasters.)In their work, reality precedes rhetoric. Still,their work is different than what we think ofwhen we imagine realism. Yes, their work isreal, but even more than that, their work israre and raw. What do we find there? Howshould we take it in? Their work challenges usin many ways.

With its dramatic cliffs and inlets, the seashorealong Ōfunato is spectacularly beautiful. If youlook out over the landscape on a clear day, it isso beautiful that it hardly seems it could belongto this world. I will never forget what IwabuchiFumio, a master ship carpenter told me duringone of my visits. Iwabuchi lived in Kesennumaand lost everything, both his home and hisworkplace, to the tsunami. Even so, he told methat he hoped I would carry within me, “theheart of the sea.”

Arai Takako was born in 1966 in Kiryū City, Gunma Prefecture to a family engaged in textilemanufacturing, a traditional industry in Kiryū. She is a graduate of Keio University'sliterature department and currently teaches at Saitama University. In addition to severalworks of literary criticism and her editorship of the poetry magazine Mi’Te, she has publishedthree books of poetry, including Tamashii Dance (Soul Dance), which was awarded theOguma Hideo Prize. Arai is known for writing socially engaged poetry. A frequent theme of

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her work is the lives of working women and the ways that they have been shaped bycontemporary trends, especially push toward globalization, the recent economic downturn,and the 2011 earthquake-related crises in northeastern Japan. Translations of her poetry areavailable in Soul Dance (http://www.mi-te-press.net/eng/books/index.html) (Mi’Te Press,2008) and Poems of Hiromi Itō, Toshiko Hirata & Takako Arai(http://vagabondpress.net/products/poems-of-hiromi-ito-toshiko-hirata-takako-arai-asia-pacific-9) (Vagabond Press, 2016), both translated by Jeffrey Angles.

Jeffrey Angles (1971–) is a professor of Japanese and translation at Western MichiganUniversity, Kalamazoo MI 49008. He is the author of Writing the Love of Boys (University ofMinnesota Press, 2011) and These Things Here and Now: Poetic Responses to the March 11,2011 Disasters (Josai University, 2016). He is also the award-winning translator of dozens ofJapan’s most important modern Japanese authors and poets. His most recent translationproject was an annotated, critical edition of the masterpiece of Japanese modernist literature,The Book of the Dead (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0816688109/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), byOrikuchi Shinobu (University of Minnesota Press, 2017). He believes strongly in the role oftranslators as social activists, and much of his career has focused on the translation intoEnglish of socially engaged, feminist, or queer writers. He also writes poetry, mostly inJapanese. His collection of poetry Watashi no hizuke henkō sen(https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4783735409/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (My International DateLine) was published by Shichōsha in 2016.

Notes1 NOTES: This is a revised version of an essay that first appeared as Arai Takako, “Ōfunatonōto,” Mi’Te: Shi to hihyō, Vol. 134 (Spring 2016). Ōfunato-shi, Higai jōkyō nado, See here(http://www.city.ofunato.iwate.jp/www/contents/1303015440244/index.html) (accessed 28Dec 2016). 2 Keisatsu-chō, Heisei 23-nen (2011-nen) Tōhoku chihō Taiheiyōchū jishin no higai jōkyō tokeisatsu sochi, See here (http://www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/biki/higaijokyo.pdf) (accessed 28Dec 2016).3 Ōfunato-shi, Higashi Nihon Dai Shinsai ni yoru higai jōkyō nado ni tsuite (Heisei 28-nen 9-gatsu 30-nichi genzai), See here(http://www.city.ofunato.iwate.jp/www/contents/1303015440244/html/common/other/58071e23003.pdf) (accessed 28 Dec 2016).4 Ibid.5 Iwate-ken Fukkō-kyoku Seikatsu Saiken-ka, Ōkyū kasetsu jūtaku (kensetsu bun) kyōyo oyobinyūkyo jōkyō (Heisei 28-nen 11-gatsu 30-nichi genzai), See here(http://www.pref.iwate.jp/dbps_data/_material_/_files/000/000/023/870/28kasetsu2811.pdf)(accessed 28 Dec 2016).6 Ōfunato Shi no Kai, ed. 3.11 no shijin-tachi: Kokoro no kiseki (Ōfunato-shi: E-Pix Shuppan,2012). Readers interested in ordering a copy should contact the publisher at TEL0192-26-3334.

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7 Sanriku o Yomō Jikkō Iinkai, ed. Tachiagaru Sanriku e no ōenka (Ōfunato-shi: Sanriku oYomō Jikkō Iinkai, 2014).8 Kita no bungaku, vol. 66 (May 2013). This journal is published by the Iwate Nippōsha, thepublisher of the Iwate Daily News (Iwate Nippō).9 Nihon Esseisuto Kurabu, ed., Nekutai to Edomae: 7-nenhan besuto essei shū (Tokyo: BungeiShunju, 2007).10 In the city of Rikuzentakata, located next to Ōfunato, there is a mountain called TamayamaKinzan, where gold ore was first discovered in ancient times. As a result, the surname “Kinno”(meaning “gold fields”) is common in the region.11 Kinno Takako, Yamabuki (Ōfunato-shi: Iwate Kaihatsu Sangyō Kabushikigaisha, 2015).