|

楼主 |
发表于 2011-1-21 13:30:29
|
显示全部楼层
Novelist Kodo Nomura (1882-1963) helped legitimize "jiji senryu" (senryu that deals with current events) as a literary genre. Nomura joined the Hochi Shimbun newspaper toward the end of the Meiji Era (1868-1912). After he became editor of the paper's city news department, Nomura started a senryu section where readers were invited to send in their pieces and compete for prize money. Nomura himself was one of the judges. Here's what Nomura later lauded as "the all-time masterpiece": "Mount Fuji as seen by Hiroshige/ Can now be seen from Suruga-cho."
Suruga-cho, which is in present-day Nihonbashi, in central Tokyo, was renowned during the Edo Period (1603-1868) as one of the best spots for viewing Mount Fuji. And when the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 razed all tall buildings in the neighborhood, the majestic mountain revealed itself in its full splendor, just as the ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) had portrayed it 67 years before. The senryu captured the sense of disbelief that many Tokyoites must have felt as they saw their city reduced to smouldering rubble.
On Jan. 17, 1995, the skyline collapsed on the city of Kobe. After violent tremors subsided, what emerged in the bleak light of dawn was an entirely different city with more than 100,000 buildings destroyed. Columns of smoke rose from the rubble, under which more than 6,000 people perished. As if to bury all painful memories of 16 years ago, many neighborhoods of Kobe have since undergone drastic transformation.
The city is said to be about to finalize its blueprint for post-quake rezoning and redevelopment. An entirely new street map has been drawn for an area that is 66 times the size of Koshien Stadium. For some people, this means seeing a part of their neighborhood, where they have lived all their lives, transformed into a public park. These people initially opposed the plan, but they eventually agreed in the belief that the safety of their children and grandchildren must come first.
I recall an event organized in Kobe in autumn 1996 for readers of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun. The late Shinko Tokizane (1929-2007), a senryu poet and a local resident who attended the event, read a piece she penned on the morning of the Great Hanshin Earthquake while she remained huddled like a tortoise under her desk. It went: "Torn to pieces/ Jan. 17, the seventh year of Heisei."
The more terrifying the experience, the harder it is to recount it to anyone. One cannot readily verbalize one's feelings when one's heart has "gone to pieces." But the oldest of Kobe's youngsters who were born after the quake will start senior high school soon. As the city keeps changing its appearance and its residents continue to move out, it becomes increasingly important with each passing year to ensure that the spirit of mutual help, which filled the city in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, will always be remembered and retold. |
|