Shotetsu
from a world of long ago—
of what good are they?
Pine winds, come—please blow away
these unforgotten dreams.
Shotetsu (正徹; 1381–1459) was a Japanese poet during the Muromachi period. He is considered to have been the last poet in the courtly waka tradition and a number of his disciples were important in the development of the renga art form, which led to the haiku.
Quotes
[edit]- As if to say—
"Isn't it true for men, as well:
that the more the words,
the less they are of value?"—
the cuckoo does not call again.- "One Call from a Cuckoo", Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu, 1997, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter, page 52
- When I
look upon
the rich sheen of summer hairs
in my new brush,
I am saddened by a deer
drawn at night to a hunter's torch.- "Summer Writing Brush", Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu, 1997, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter, page 53
- I had forgotten—
as I kept on forgetting
to remind myself
that those who vow to forget
are the ones who can't forget.- "Forgotten Love", Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu, 1997, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter, page 176
- All these images
from a world of long ago—
of what good are they?
Pine winds, come—please blow away
these unforgotten dreams.- "Reminiscing", Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu, 1997, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter, page 31
- Even in one’s sleep,
it is dreams of this world one sees,
and of no other;
just as there is no dawning here
that brings true awakening.- "Dream", Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu, 1997, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter, page 34
- How cruel the voice
that bars me from traveling
the way of dreams.
Not a man, but still a gate guard
is that wind in the reeds.- "Dream Disturbed by Reeds", Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu, 1997, edited and translated by Steven D. Carter, page 30
- If one continues to compose poems of the sort that everyone else considers good, one must remain forever at that ordinary level. On the other hand, when one writes poems whose essence is profound and difficult, others fail to understand them, and this is frustrating.
- As quoted in Conversations with Shotetsu (Shotetsu Monogatari), 1992, Translated by Robert H. Bower
- In this art of poetry, those who speak ill of Teika should be denied the protection of the gods and Buddhas and condemned to the punishments of hell.
- As quoted in Conversations with Shotetsu (Shotetsu Monogatari), 1992, Translated by Robert H. Bower
Quotes about
[edit]- The annals of Japanese literary history abound with stories of suffering literati. [...] None of these, however, seems to have borne more grief than the Zen monk Shotetsu (1381-1459), [...] For Shotetsu was not once but thrice stricken: first, by the loss of all of the poems of his first thirty years—more than 30,000 of them—in a fire that destroyed his residence in 1432, at the age of fifty-two; second, by the confiscation of his estate revenues by an angry shogun at around the same time; and lastly by the refusal of his rivals to allow him any representation whatsoever in the only imperially commissioned poetic anthology of his time, the Shin shokuko-kinshū of 1439.
- Steven D. Carter, Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shōtetsu, 1997
