【種田山頭火・生誕142周年。「銃後」を朗読映像に。Free-Verse Haiku, Taneda Santoka’s 142nd Birthday: “On the Homefront” in a Haiku Film】

 　本日・12月3日は、自由律俳句の俳人・種田山頭火の生誕、142周年。（1882年・明治15年　12月3日 - 1940年・昭和15年 10月11日）山頭火といえば、放浪の人生とともに、その句行も奔放で、道行く山々と貧乏振りをひたすら自虐的に詠むボエミアンとばかり思っていたが、最近知った「銃後」に、少なからず驚いた。この世に息づく限り、どんなに孤高を気取ったところで、押し寄せる波を逃れることなど出来ない。「銃後」の頃は、昭和10年代、日本が大陸に進出した時代だった。そして、来年は戦後80年。皮肉にも、ますます「あの頃」を想起さす世界である。

      Today, December 3rd, marks the 142nd birthday of Taneda Santoka (Dec 3,1882-Oct 11, 1940), a poet of free-verse haiku. When I thought of Santoka, I used to associate him with a wandering lifestyle and unrestrained poetry—poems that self-deprecatingly depicted the mountains along his travels and his destitution, casting him as a kind of bohemian. However, I was quite surprised when I recently discovered his work On the Homefront (「銃後 ~Jūgo」).

     No matter how much one tries to walk their own solitary path, it is impossible to escape the waves that come crashing in as long as one breathes in this world. The era of On the Homefront was the late 1930s and early 1940s, a time when Japan was expanding onto the Asian continent. Next year will mark 80 years since the end of World War II, and ironically, the current global climate seems increasingly reminiscent of "those days."

【追記】

「銃後」の句の中で、山頭火は「汗」とたびたび書いている。言わずもがなだが、これは「涙」に違いなく、もし、そう書くと、戦時下では「悲哀をそそるもの」として断罪されたからだろう。もしくは、詩的表現として「汗」としたか。日本男児としての体裁か。いずれにしろ、いや、むしろ、「汗」だからこそ、かえって「悲哀」を感じずにはいられない句群である。

【Note】

　In "On the Homefront," Santōka Taneda repeatedly uses the word "sweat." Needless to say, this is unmistakably a stand-in for "tears." If he had written "tears" explicitly, it might have been condemned under wartime censorship as something "inciting sorrow." Or perhaps he chose "sweat" as a poetic expression, or as a way to maintain the dignity expected of a Japanese man at the time. In any case—or perhaps precisely because it is rendered as "sweat"—the verses evoke an even deeper sense of sorrow that cannot be overlooked.