Machi Tawara
Japón, 1962.
Cuando Machi Tawara nació, el 31 de diciembre de 1962, la mayor parte de sus familiares quiso esperar veinticuatro horas antes de registrar oficialmente su nacimiento. No sólo el 1 de enero parecía un día más favorable para un cumpleaños, sino que como 1962 era el año del Tigre, la creencia popular era que las mujeres nacidas durante ese año iban a espantar a los hombres cuando estuvieran en edad de casarse. Sin embargo, esto no preocupó en lo más mínimo al padre de Machi, un físico, quien siguió adelante y reportó la fecha de nacimiento tal cual. Su acción fue profética, porque la niña creció para convertirse en portavoz elocuente de la shinjinrui o "la nueva generación," a quienes poco interesan las creencias tradicionales, mucho menos la institución
tradicional del matrimonio.
La infancia de Machi transcurrió en Osaka. Cuando cumplió catorce, su familia se mudó a un pequeño pueblo cerca de Fukui, donde asistió a la escuela secundaria. Su actividad extracurricular principal en esos días era la actuación; a menudo apareció en el escenario en las producciones de teatro de la escuela. Tuvo poco interés en la poesía hasta que ingresó en la Universidad Waseda de Tokio y tomó un curso con el poeta Sasaki Yukitsuna. Los encantos de la tanka la atraparon de inmediato, hasta tal punto que escribió su tesis sobre el arte de componer tankas en secuencia. Ella misma comenzó a escribir tankas y se unió al grupo Kokoro no hana en 1983. Tan sólo algunos meses después ganó el premio de tanka Kadokawa con el poemario "Una mañana de agosto". En 1985 se graduó en la Universidad Waseda y comenzó a enseñar japonés en la escuela secundaria Hashimoto en la prefectura de Kanagawa, pero su carrera educativa duró sólo cuatro años porque su primer libro de tankas, Sarada Kinenbi (Bodas de ensalada) fue en un gran éxito de ventas tan pronto como apareció en las librerías en 1987 -con casi tres millones de copias vendidas-; hasta tal punto que se convirtió en uno de los libros más vendidos en la historia del Japón. Su autora se volvió una celebridad -solicitada por la TV y como conferencista-; hasta tuvo que dejar su puesto de maestra para atender los compromisos derivados de la celebridad inesperada. Bodas de ensalada ganó el premio de la Asociación de Poetas Modernos del Japón en 1988. En 1991, publicó su segundo libro de tankas, Kaze no tenohira (La palma del viento); y en 1997 una tercera colección, La revolución de chocolate. También es traductora de literatura clásica japonesa al japonés contemporáneo y crítica muy reconocida; ha publicado gran cantidad de libros de viaje y fotografía que han sido muy populares, y una serie de ensayos para periódicos y revistas como Asahi Shimbun Newspaper, Asahi Weekly y Bungei Shunju. Además de su trabajo como poetiza y escritora, ha formado parte de diversos comités incluyendo el Comité para el Idioma Japonés y el Comité Central para la Educación.
BODAS DE ENSALADA (SARADA KINENBI)
Primer libro de tankas de Machi Tawara, con el que ganó el premio Kadokawa.
Así eres, decides
que Hotel California es la melodía
para abalanzarse
sin freno ni medida
por las carreteras del litoral.
No dejo de mirarte
cuando cruzas el aire azul del cielo
sobre el verdoso mar,
y vienes hacia mí
cabalgando en la tabla de surf.
Picnic sobre la playa:
olvidados por ahí, no hemos probado
los sándwiches de huevo.
De pronto caí en cuenta
de que eso me ha estado preocupando.
Nos sentamos: la espalda
contra el muro soleado, una pierna
al lado de la otra.
Ten en cuenta la forma
en que trazamos líneas paralelas.
Con cuánta seriedad
oprimo el disparador de la cámara
en playa Kujukuri...
Instantáneas que acaso
después voy a tirar en la basura.
—¿Aún estás ahí?
Lo deseo tanto y quiero creerlo:
uno al lado del otro
en cuerpo y alma, como un
dúo derrumbado sobre la arena.
Rollizo y circular,
como si no pudiera aguantar la
fuerza de gravedad,
este sol se descuelga,
y la pesantez lo sumerge en la mar.
En playa Kujukuri,
bajo el brillo anaranjado del cielo,
termino refugiándome
dentro del carboncillo
que dibuja tu abrazo monocromo.
Las olas del mar rompen,
avanzan con calmosa mansedumbre,
y después retroceden...
No me intimidaría
si así me dijeras: “¡Hasta la vista!”
En la playa, en silencio,
frente con frente, sujetamos unas
bengalas en las manos;
y las gotas de luz
salpican sobre el terreno arenoso.
Cómo me regocija
la forma en que vacilas cuando buscas
a tientas la palabra
o palabras apropiadas
para acomodarlas tras un silencio.
Esa manía tan tuya
de recorrer mis dedos con la zurda:
primero uno, otro,
después otro. Tal vez
es tu modo de expresar el amor.
No la voy a reparar:
—así voy a guardarlo en el baúl
de los recuerdos caros—
una leve hendidura
en la copa del sombrero de paja.
—Llámame lo más pronto
que puedas.— Y cuelgas el aparato.
A mi modo de ver,
"lo más pronto" sería
devolverte la llamada ya mismo.
—Perdóname. —Contesto
sin poner atención, como si hablara
con una simple amiga.
Entonces, Padre clava
la mirada en el tazón de té.
Pasa en el probador:
caigo en cuenta de que me estoy poniendo
solamente vestidos
con los estampaditos
de florituras que tanto te gustan.
Mientras más amontono
artículos para el apartamento
en la bolsa de compras,
mayor la sensación
de bienestar en la tienda Tokyu Hands.
Planear el menú
nocturno frente al puesto de verduras
dentro del mercado,
a las cuatro de la tarde:
es uno de los placeres de la vida.
http://verseria.com/tawara/monografia%20contenido.htm
Machi Tawara, one of Japan's most popular tanka poet. Also well known as a critic, author and translator of Japanese classic literature into contemporary Japanese.
She was born in Osaka, and raised there and later in Fukui. In 1981, as she entered Waseda University, she began to write tanka under her mentor, the respected poet Yukitsuna Sasaki. After graduating Waseda with a BA in Japanese Literature in 1985, Ms.Tawara started teaching at Hashimoto Highschool in Kanagawa, where she taught Japanese until 1989. While she was teaching, she continued her activities as a poet and received the 32nd Kadokawa Tanka Award(1986). Her first volume of tanka, Salad Anniversary, was published in 1987 and became an immediate bestseller with nearly three million copies in print. With this outstanding debut publication, she recieved the Modern Japanese Poets Association Award(1988). Her third collection of tanka, Chocolate Revolution, was published in 1997. Ms. Tawara is also a well-known critic and translator of Japanese classic literature into contemporary Japanese, including the Man'yoshu(Collection of 10,000 leaves), Taketori Monogatari(The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), and Midare Gami(Tangled Hair). In addition, she has published a number of popular travel and photography books and has written a series of essays for newspapers and magazines such as Asahi Shimbun Newspaper, Asahi Weekly and Bungei Shunju. Aside from her work as a poet and writer, Ms. Tawara has served as a member of various committees including the Commitee for Japanese Language and the Central Committee for Education.
- Below is quoted from the English version of "Salad Anniversary"(published bu Kodansha International, 1989)translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. I deeply appreciate Juliette for letting me reproduce her comments on this page.
Machi Tawara, a shy, 26-year-old high school teacher living in Tokyo, took Japan by storm with the publication of her maiden work: a book of poetry called Sarada kinenbi, here translated as Salad Anniversary. In six months the book sailed through countless printings and has sold to date a mind-boggling 2,500,000 copies and more, making it one of the nation's all-time bestsellers. Such a record is remarkable enough for any book, in any genre; for a book of modern poetry it is unprecedented.
"Salad Phenomenon" is the phrase coined to describe the impact of this book on Japanese society. Tawara herself became an instant celebrity, besieged with requests for autographs, interviews, public lectures, guest columns in newspapers and magazines, and TV and radio appearances--all the while keeping up a busy eight-to-five teaching schedule, Mondays through Saturdays. She has had two weekly television shows. There have also been a couple of televised serial dramas and a musical revue based loosely on Salad Anniversary, not to mention a full-length movie.
Critical reaction has also been highly favorable, despite cavils from purists offended by Tawara's modern adaptation of a classical verse form. "August Morning," the book's opening 50-poem sequence, was awarded the coveted Kadokawa Tanka Prize--an unheard-of achievement for a young woman fresh out of college. The entire book was also named by the Association of Modern Poets as the outstanding poetry collection of 1987.
Besides producing a book of essays and a second slender collection of poems, Tawara came up with a sort of telephone version of the "Prairie Home Companion" : touched by the massive outpouring of fan mail she began to receive, and determined somehow to respond, she made short, semimonthly recordings to chat about her latest doings and announce to upcoming events. Meanwhile, the Salad Phenomenon has also brought us comics, choral works by a distinguished composer, and even a CD of "Salad Classics" --Chopin and Debussy-- to play while leafing through the book.
Perhaps the most amazing response to Tawara's work has come directly from reader themselves: inspired by Tawara's seemingly effortless sketches of modern life and love, done in an age-old form, many have decided to try their own hand at poetry. Letters have come pouring in by the tens of thousands--and with them, well over 200,000 tanka. Nearly 1,500 of these, selected by Tawara, have also been published in a book form. The oldest contributor is a 91-year-old man; the youngest, an 11-year-old girl. One struggles to think of a comparable level of response to any other single work of literature: an identification so complete that readers--people from all walks of life--do not stop at passive enjoyment, but begin a spontaneous creative outpouring of their own.
What is all the fuss about? Tanka(short poems of thirty-one syllables in a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern) have a venerable history of at least 1,300 years in Japan. In modern times, however, they have suffered from an image problem: dealing traditionally with set themes ( the beauties of nature, confessions of emotion), tanka tended to become stale and conventional; this difficulty was compounded by poets' continued use of outmoded "literary" language which made the poems hard to understand and kept them seemingly remote from daily experience. Poets who sought to revitalize tanka by avoiding classical formulas, on the other hand, often seemed to achieve modernity at the expense of rythm and grace. Part of Tawara's achievement lies in her ability to use fresh, contemporary language--skillfully incorporating bits of natural comversation, borrowed words from English like "photographer," and modern icons like McDonald's--without sacrificing the traditional tanka virtues of concision, evocativeness, and musicality.
But Tawara does not limit herself exclusively to the vernacular. She avails herself of a widerange of Japanese, including classical words("ones I particulary like"). Sevecral makura-kotoba, or "pillow words"--traditional poetic modifiers--appear, and there are allusions to indivisual older poems and to the eight-century Man'yoshu, Japan's oldest poetry anthology. The language employed is thus not mere "young people's Japanese" but a literate, sophisticated mixture of old and new--with emphasis, throughout, on new.
This combination of old and new is present in the opening poem (though impossible, alas, to suggest in translation):
kono kyoku to kimete kaigan zoi no michi
tobasu kimi nari
"hoteru kariforunia"
Always playing this song
you race along the seacoast road--
"Hotel California"
Here the word nari is a classical copula, contrasting with the modern, American flavor of the song title.
The same poem illustrates another feature of her work--the tendency for meaning to straddle, not coincide exactly with, the 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic groupings. "Ki-me-te-ka-i-ga-n"(literally, "deciding seacoast") is a 7-syllable cluster in the poem above, but decidedly not a unit of meaning in itself. Tanka are often described as "five-line" poems, but this is misleading in several respects--not least being the fact that they are almost always written in a single line in Japanese. All of the poems in Salad Anniversary appear in the original as a single vertical line, three to a page; however, several are interrupted with a space to mark a major break in the poem--a break which may appear at any point. In her second tanka collection, Toritate no tanka desu ("Fresh-picked tanka"), Tawara has experimented with writing tanka in two and three lines of various lengths(although she claims that "in her heart" she still thinks of tanka as a single line). In my translations I have generally adhered to a three-line format, and have aimed at brevity without attempting to dupilicate syllable counts.
What has so endeared these poems to the Japanese public? One answer seems to be the cheerful, light tone--perfectly suited to the fresh, crisp, "salad" image. The emotions are genuine and deeply felt, but never bitter or overwhelming. The sadness of ending a relationshio is balanced by relief, the decision swift and clean
Like getting up to leave
a hamburger place--
that's how I'll leave
that man
She seems to be standing at a slight remove from herself, never totally lost in an emotion, but always partly outside it, observing herself and those around her with a light and coolly objective eye.
Although love, or the lack of it, is the main focus of Tawara's poetry, she writes also of home and family; of life in a big city; of her experiences teaching; of music and cooking and baseball and the sea; of travels in China; of odd moments of sudden insight or whimsy, premonition, or surprise:
The day I left for Tokyo
Mother looked older by all the years
of separation ahead
As in the title poem, she values the ordinary things in life, the small events, finding beauty in them and in a life where every moment is intensely, fully lived:
"This tastes great," you said and so
the sixth of July--
our salad anniversary
Writing on the blackboard,
I pause to rest my hand--
in those seconds
think meltingly of you
Ultimately the appeal of her poem rests on their universality, on our recognizing as we read them "Yes that's just how it is!" or "I know that feeling, too". She says she seeks to express the "swaying of the heart"(kokoro no yure); that she succeeds is clear from the reverberations she sets up in our hearts. In her own afterword to her poems she sums up by saying that " to live is to creat poetry, to create poetry is to live."
It is ironic that(if we may believe her) Machi Tawara has no real lover; these real-sounding love poems spring largely from imagination, based(she says shyly) not on a particular longing for any one person so much as a general longing for human contact. That her poems have moved the hearts of so many, touching the lives of millions of people with whom she would never otherwise have had communication, seems to please her enormously.
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