Ogasawara Torui and Hachikai Mimi talk about "contemporary poetry" of the 2000s

Last time, we looked at contemporary poetry of the 2000s, broadly dividing it into two points. One was the internet. As it became widely used by the general public, the "hidden words of the heart" that had previously been written in diaries and notebooks began to spill out into the open. When you read them, you find many wonderful words. How did poets manage to write such special poems in such an environment?

Saihate Tahi is not the only poet to have included words written online in his poetry collections; in recent years, Iwakura Fumiya, who was selected as a new writer for Eureka, also comes to mind. On the other hand, if you think of poetry as something that can be turned into a work of art, isn't it difficult for it to last as a work of art if it's simply a list of cries from the heart?

As we were preparing for this interview, I thought about the fact that you studied the Kojiki and Fudoki in graduate school. You study a lot and incorporate them into your poetry as nourishment. Wouldn't you say that there are an increasing number of poets who create words that are not one-dimensional?

Speaking of learning, Ogasawara's background is French literature. Other poets who emerged in the 2000s include Minashita Kiryu, who specializes in sociology, Sugimoto Maiko, who specializes in philosophy, and Misumi Mizuki, who specialized in film and video at university. Looking back at the history of poetry, the anthology "Shintai Shisho" [A], published in 1882 (Meiji 15), which marked the beginning of modern Japanese poetry, includes works such as "On the Principles of Sociology" and lines from Shakespeare's play "Hamlet." It may be possible to see this broad perspective as an extension of the lineage of modern poetry. However, knowledge is only one element. The trend toward multi-layered poetry that incorporates the whole person, including experience, seems characteristic of the 2000s.

The growing complexity of inner cries seems like a 21st-century trend that still resonates today. The last time I looked at the internet, I was looking at Gendai Shi Techo. In the 1990s, it was a magazine that scared me, but made me want to be recognized. As we entered the 2000s, I feel like that vibe has gradually faded.

Put simply, this was a time when the Zenkyoto generation, the baby boomer generation, and their successors were still active on the front lines. In any case, it was natural to criticize first, and I think that this was both a critique and proof that one was seriously engaging with the subject.

I had doubts about such narrow criticism and poetry that does not acknowledge anything that does not fit within a certain framework.

I think that concerns about criticism were shared to a certain extent by writers who began writing poetry around the 2000s. In the 2000s, poets with diverse styles emerged one after another. Looking at it from the other side, it could be said that this was a time when the 1990s framework loosened and allowed for the emergence of diverse poets. I think the variety of poetic styles was so great that it could be said that their commonality was their lack of similarity. This does not necessarily mean that it is limited to themes or motifs. For example, poets who were conscious of poetic form emerged. They perceived poetry as images, in terms of form rather than meaning. Looking back in time, there is the example of Seiichi Niikuni's concrete poetry (concrete poetry) developed in the 1960s as part of the avant-garde poetry movement. I think that this inheritance from the past can also be seen as an element in the 2000s.

Someone once wrote that my poems were "not poetry." Looking back, I think it's fair to say that there are now so many boundaries.

While we were diverse, I believe poets were also interested in and aware of each other. At least, that's how I felt. Simply put, we are a generation of diversity and coexistence. It's precisely because we have such diverse beings that we can bring out the best in each other. It's just like the world of Ogasawara's poetry.

What do you think about contemporary poetry since the 2000s?

It feels like the boundaries between genres—poetry and novels, tanka, haiku, essays—are becoming lower and closer. There are also an increasing number of authors, such as Tokiwa Hotta and Fumika Sato, who are active across the boundaries of the poetry genre.

Tamura Kanaten, who is active in the poetry magazine "Intercollegiate Poetry" [C], primarily for students studying poetry, and has published the poetry collection "Hitonoma," is a writer of both haiku and tanka.

"Intercollegiate Poetry" stopped being a print publication a while ago and moved to the web. Some participants confessed that it was hard to maintain motivation when it was only online because anyone could do it individually. I felt that the optimism of the early days of the internet, when anything was possible, has changed in modern times, and people's perceptions have shifted.

I feel that publishers are now becoming more enthusiastic about publishing poetry collections. Long-established publishers with over 50 years of history, such as Shichosha [D] and Shichigatsudo, as well as publishers established in the 2000s, such as Shoshi Kankanbo, Nanarokusha, and Sososha, and the recently launched Lightverse Publishing, are all actively working. I'd love to join forces to make this a success.