earthworms crying
in front of the station
in the city history
駅前の蚯蚓鳴くこと市史にあり
you go to hell
I’ll go to heaven
wind in green leaves
君地獄へわれ極楽へ青あらし
handheld firework:
you are a woman
of the Earth
手花火の君は地球の女なり
bare brains
in beautiful swimsuits
あらはなる脳うつくしき水着かな
since becoming
a lordless samurai in Tosa
how many sweet potatoes?
土佐脱藩以後いくつめの焼芋ぞ
grabbing the swan’s neck
and swinging it around
in a dream
白鳥の首つかみ振り回はす夢
like a beautiful girl
with a full set of gold teeth
spring afterglow
総金歯の美少女のごとき春夕焼
wheat harvest–
toward Edo, toward Edo,
leading the elephant
麦秋や江戸へ江戸へと象を曳き
the Ogura One Hundred
huddling together
in the cold . . .
小倉百人かたまつてゆく寒さ哉
counting funds
at the height of our love
at the height of the day
サラリー数ふ恋ざかりなる日盛に
rose of Sharon–
human beings growing older
under umbrellas
底紅や人類老いて傘の下
Notes:
“a lordless samurai”: This apparently refers to Ryoma Sakamoto (1836-1867), a famous historical figure who became a lordless samurai in the spring of 1862 for opposing the Tokugawa Shogunate and who was assassinated in 1867 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakamoto_Ry%C5%8Dma).
“leading the elephant”: This poem seems to be based upon a real incident in Japanese history, in which the first elephant brought to Japan was marched to Edo (modern Tokyo). People gathered all along its route to see the animal, and prints of artists’ renditions sold out.
“the Ogura One Hundred”: The esteemed one hundred poets who each contributed one poem to the “Ogura Hyakunin Isshu” (Ogura One Hundred People One Poem Each, 小倉百人一首) anthology of waka, traditional Japanese poetry, selected by Fujiwara no Teika. This poem is also an allusion to the haiku “foot soldiers huddling together in the cold” (「足軽のかたまつて行く寒さかな」) by Shiro Inoue (1742-1812) .
Rose of Sharon: 底紅 (sokobeni), lit. “red [at the] bottom,” is another name for 木槿 (mukuge), lit. “tree rose,” which is known as the “rose of Sharon” in English. This poem was apparently written during the 7th annual memorial service of Yukihiko Settsu, a haiku poet who died young (1947-1996).
Biographical Information:
Leona Takayama (b. 1968) graduated from Waseda University’s Department of Political Science and Economics. At twenty, he began writing haiku and joined the coterie magazine Anzu in 1993. Twenty issues later, he became an editor of Geijutsu Shincho and started working as a haiku poet. In 1998, he published his first collection of haiku, Ultra, and in 2005, his second collection, 「荒東雑詩」, which won the 11th Kami Haiku Grand Prize.
In 2008, he and Yasunobu Nakamura launched the website “Haiku Space Weekly” and ran it for two years until it closed with its 100th issue. He also edited and published an anthology of young haiku poets, Newly Compiled 21 (2009) and Ultra Newly Compiled 21 (2010) with Bansei Tsukushi and Yasuko Tsushima, and was in charge of the Asahi Shimbun Haiku Review from 2010 to 2012. He has been a judge for the Asahi Haiku World since July 8, 2018, succeeding the legendary Kaneko Tohta. He is the youngest haiku judge among all newspaper haiku judges at 49 years old.
His style of haiku shows his knowledge of the classics of the East and West, including old haikai. In his second collection of haiku, all the poems have various long and short prefaces, and his third collection is divided into eight volumes with seven chapters, a catalog, and opening titles, each with a different style of binding.
Winter Trips, Summer Dreams: The Collected Haiku of Leona Takayama (冬の旅、夏の夢：高山れおな句集) was released in 2018.
Sources:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E5%B1%B1%E3%82%8C%E3%81%8A%E3%81%AA
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