Bunya no Yasuhide

Here's our seventh print this year, a member of the famous 'Group of Six' poets, Bunya no Yasuhide. When I heard that he was part of that elite group of six poets, I expected that I would then turn up a shower of interesting information on his life, but was somewhat surprised to find that actually very little is known about him. We have very few of his poems left behind, and other than the fact that his son will turn up in the Hyaku-nin Isshu a bit later on, we know next to nothing ...

The rather clumsy pun in this English version is of course the translator's attempt to show us the sort of games that are played in the original. I suppose I've talked about this sort of thing before, but still remain quite puzzled as to how poetry that is basically so boring can be so famous, and can have lasted so many centuries. But now that I think of it, I suppose there is a comparable situation in English. A friend of mine is currently reading 'Hamlet', and the other day when we were on the train together he started quoting some particularly musical passage to me in his excitement. I had to ask him why he was reading this old, old story about poisoning, murder and mayhem 'all in the family'. What possible relevance could such a tale have to his own life? Moral guidance on how to behave if his uncle were to kill his father? Of course not. He is reading this story for the story-telling. The language. The eloquent turn of phrase. To hear the way the poet made the words dance. And I suppose it's pretty much the same thing with the Hyaku-nin Isshu. An autumn wind blowing the leaves around may or may not be interesting in its own right, but when a good poet describes the scene to us, well that's something else .

So should an Englishman like me feel uncomfortable working with this Japanese poetry? I'll obviously never develop a deep enough knowledge of the language to enjoy these poems properly, and will forever be missing the main point ... But of course for me the main point is not poetry, it's printmaking. It makes for an interesting image - an English person dabbling in an aspect of Japanese culture that he doesn't really understand well, but who by doing so, is giving an extra impetus to that part of the culture and helping it survive for even longer. Perhaps though, this isn't strange at all. I am sure that various libraries and museums in England are full of Japanese scholars studying Shakespeare ...

In any case, I hope that English speaking collectors enjoy this print, while Japanese speakers can perhaps also enjoy Yasuhide's poetry. (But I still wonder, is it really such an interesting poem ...?)

September 1993

Translation - William Porter, 1909