The 2nd Selected Works
TITLE
Selected Poems and Short Stories
(Miyazawa Kenji shishu-tanpenshu)
(Miyazawa Kenji shishu-tanpenshu)
AUTHOR
Translator
ENGLISH / Roger Pulvers 
RUSSIAN / Ekaterina Riabova
Originally Published by:
Shinchosha (1990) (pb)
KEY POINTS
- Poetry that has been praised for its fresh and surprise use of a diverse range of words, including scientific and religious terms as well as terms from regional dialects
- Japan's best-loved fairy tales, which are both beautiful and sad
- The representative works of a genius writer whose works surpassed the conventional boundaries of poetry, fairy tales, and novels and hinted at new kinds of literature to come but unfortunately passed away at the young age of 37
SYNOPSIS
Overwhelming images and innovative word usage create a new world of poetry and fairy tales
Born and raised in the countryside of Iwate Prefecture, Kenji Miyazawa felt an emotional resonance with the wonders of creation that he encountered while wandering into the depths of his natural surroundings, and he expressed that in his writing. Rejecting the constraints of conventional definitions of poetry, he referred to his own creative pursuits as "mental sketches." The first example of this is the colloquial free verse of "Spring and Asura." The vocabulary of this collection is innovative, including scientific and religious terms as well as terms from regional dialects, and this astonished such established poets as Sonosuke Sato. (Selected Poems and Short Stories)
Impatiently awaiting his father's return from a fishing trip, Giovanni works after school collecting movable type pieces at a printing shop. One holiday, having been teased by his classmates, Giovanni comes by himself to a hilltop. There, he suddenly notices he is at Milky Way Station, and he boards the Milky Way Railway train along with his friend, Campanella. Giovanni and Campanella—who had been swept away in a river current while saving a friend who had fallen in the water—take a trip through space in this beautiful and wondrous tale. ("Night of the Milky Way Railway")
The "nighthawk" is quite similar to the hawk in appearance but has a face covered in splotches as if it had been splattered with miso. With a beak that is flat and split all the way back to his ears, he is a truly ugly bird.
One day, the hawk begins pressuring the nighthawk to change his name, which is too similar to the hawk's name, and take the name "Ichizo." Not wanting to change his name, the nighthawk desperately refuses, while beginning to wonder why everybody dislikes him. While pondering this question, the nighthawk begins feeling guilty about the large number of insects that he kills and eats each evening. He resolves to fly to the furthest edges of the sky. He asks the sparkling blue-white stars to take him with them, but… ("The Nighthawk Star")
GENRE: Poetry, fairy tale
