Another apt tanka
働けど
働けどなお
我がくらし
楽にならざる。
ジッと手を見る
石川啄木
I work and
I work but
My life
Gets no easier.
I stare at my hands.
Ishikawa Takuboku
Although he was a middle school drop-out and otherwise led a peripatetic life of penury and failure, Ishikawa Takuboku is considered one of the greatest masters of the tanka form of Japanese poetry. Within two years of leaving school, Takuboku had already received widespread acclaim for his poetry, and by the age of 19 he had published his first full book of poems, Akogare. In 1906 he married his childhood sweetheart, Horiai Setsuko, and one year later their daughter Kyoko was born.
Since the bohemian life of a poor artist could not suffice to support a family, Takuboku left his wife and daughter to work as an itinerant journalist and substitute teacher in Hokkaido. Despite -- or perhaps because of his lack of success and inability to find a permanent position, he rejoined his family and moved to Tokyo, where his son Shinichi was born. Yet the struggle to support himself and his family, while at the same time persuing his art, had exhausted him and weakened his body. Four months after the birth of his second child, he fell ill and was hospitalized. But, as with much of his life outside of poetry, only failure awaited him: he caught tuberculosis in the same hospital to which he had come seeking healing. In 1912, Ishikawa Takuboku died in poverty at the age of 26, leaving nothing but words to his wife and children.
働けどなお
我がくらし
楽にならざる。
ジッと手を見る
石川啄木
I work and
I work but
My life
Gets no easier.
I stare at my hands.
Ishikawa Takuboku
Although he was a middle school drop-out and otherwise led a peripatetic life of penury and failure, Ishikawa Takuboku is considered one of the greatest masters of the tanka form of Japanese poetry. Within two years of leaving school, Takuboku had already received widespread acclaim for his poetry, and by the age of 19 he had published his first full book of poems, Akogare. In 1906 he married his childhood sweetheart, Horiai Setsuko, and one year later their daughter Kyoko was born.
Since the bohemian life of a poor artist could not suffice to support a family, Takuboku left his wife and daughter to work as an itinerant journalist and substitute teacher in Hokkaido. Despite -- or perhaps because of his lack of success and inability to find a permanent position, he rejoined his family and moved to Tokyo, where his son Shinichi was born. Yet the struggle to support himself and his family, while at the same time persuing his art, had exhausted him and weakened his body. Four months after the birth of his second child, he fell ill and was hospitalized. But, as with much of his life outside of poetry, only failure awaited him: he caught tuberculosis in the same hospital to which he had come seeking healing. In 1912, Ishikawa Takuboku died in poverty at the age of 26, leaving nothing but words to his wife and children.