MUTSUO TAKAHASHI was born in Japan in 1937, and educated at Fukuoka University of Education. A playwright and poet, he has published many collections of poems in Japanese and his On Two Shores: New and Selected Poems was published in April 2006 by the Dedalus Press, featuring translations by Mitsuko Ohno and Frank Sewell, and with an introduction by Nobuaki Tochigi, according to whom Takahashi is "a traditionalist, who is able to feel at home with such long-established poetic forms as haiku and tanka, as well as theatrical forms such as Noh and Kyogen. Yet, this is but one side of his resourcefulness; he is first and foremost a free verse poet who lives a cosmopolitan life."

"This is a delightful volume, especially for anyone who knows the Irish poets Takahashi finds himself among. But it has much to offer any reader. The Japanese and English texts run in opposite directions, and there are some sketches in the middle, where they meet. It is perhaps the first book of this kind to appear in Ireland, and the translators have done a fine job."
—David Burleigh, The Japan Times Online (full review >)

 

TAKAHASHI, Mutsuo On Two Shores: New and Selected Poems English-Japanese bilingual edition Translated from the Japanese by Mitsuko Ohno and Frank Sewell with an introduction by Nobuaki Tochigi April 2006 146 pp, 8.5" x 5.5" ISBN 1904556493 €12

Mistletoe

In a dream one February afternoon,
what looked like mistletoe appeared to me
and told me to write a poem about it.
Lodged between earth and sky, mistletoe
sprouts into the air from a tree-trunk.
Even in winter, when the parent tree withers,
the mistletoe’s leaves are still verdant.
So, donning a sweater, coat, scarf
and gloves, I went out to see the mistletoe.
The frosty evening sky was cloudless
as I stood on the jagged edge of a sea-cliff,
staring at some mistletoe in a tree-top.
Its green berries in the setting sun
glowed with a strange passion and intensity
but after sunset, they were just black spheres
in the blue wind, pregnant (it seemed) with seeds
of fire or lightning. Their image imprinted
on my mind, I returned home.
And this is my poem. My mistletoe poem.
I wrote it under the lamp on my desk
in a room filled up with darkness.

( Mutsuo Takahashi)

A few comments by advance readers of On Two Shores: New and Selected poems by Mutsuo Takahashi, translated by Mitsuko Ohno and Frank Sewell

Medbh McGuckian:
Excellent work … It is no accident that Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, herself so
multilingual, should be a presence in these fluent translations from
one of her homelands. Their stringency is as fittingly detached yet
passionately condemning as hers. Their appeal, however, transcends the
merely cross-cultural.

Paul Perry: 'Experienced and adept translator and poet
Frankie Sewell teams up with Mitsuko Ohno to translate into English new
poems from Mutsuo Takahashi. Takahashi who is among the foremost poets
in Japan, writing in a diverse range of forms, from free verse to haiku
to ancient Saibara, has made some beautiful poems after a recent trip
to Ireland, some of which are dedicated to well known Irish poets Nuala
Ní Dhomhnaill and Cathal Ó Searcaigh. The translations are skilful
recreations and show the passion and vitality Takahashi brings to his
subjects. Here we have a Japanese sensibility commenting on Irish
traditions and the Irish landscape with limpid images and startling
juxtapositions. There is too a simplicity to the poetry which belies a
maturity and wisdom reminiscent of the folk-tale. In more than one
poem, the barrier between the individual and an object in the
landscape, whether it is a well, or a disused railway station, becomes
blurred. The object is infused with a kind of magic, as are all of
these poems, and the individual consumes the magic and is changed.
These poems ring clear and resonate like a bell struck cleanly. Frankie
Sewell and Mitsuko Ohno are to be commended on bringing more work of
the Japanese master to English readers.

Prof. Giuseppe Serpillo, Sardinia, Citta di Olbia panel judge,
commenting on ‘Echoes’:
I don't know what the original poem sounds like, but this translation
gives the reader the feeling that it is a masterpiece. Beautiful! Each
line speaks to all of us no matter what country we come from. It is one
of those poems, which go beyond personal or national boundaries and
reach a permanent value. I will keep the poem for its value: if it had
been sent to our poetry competition as an original poem, I have no
doubt it would have received the first prize.