Kiyoko Ogawa’s book Songs for Spirits: A Selection of Tanka, Haiku and Haibun was published by Taibowsha Corporation in 2022. The collection features 59 tanka, 11 haiku and 3 haibun plus the notation for two musical compositions.

The tanka and haiku are presented in both Japanese and English while the haibun are presented in English only. There was a time when Kiyoko composed most of her poems in English, though now she usually writes her tanka and haiku in Japanese before translating them into English.

Kiyoko is a Kyoto-born poet, essayist and academic who has published several previous books of poetry. The poems in this collection address: the death of her mother in 2016 after a long illness, Kiyoko’s travels to Australia and Germany, the area around Lake Biwa in Japan and, lastly, this transient world.

I very much enjoyed the haiku and haibun in Songs for Spirits however, on this occasion, I would like to focus on Kiyoko’s tanka. Here are two tanka relating to the passing of her mother:

the moment
we carried my mother
into the coffin
I sank down to the floor
because of her lightness

a fortnight after
mother turned into dust —
I am remembering her
on a densely foggy day
incessantly raining

The following two tanka were written during a visit to Germany:

early morning
in a foreign land where
it snows in October,
the bells from Nikolaikirche
shake my heart

sunlight above
rustling leaves
warbling birds —
the music you left
is for everyone on earth

(May, in the garden of the Bachhaus Museum)

I find the emotion in these poems to be very powerful. Kiyoko is a skilled poet whose writing touches us gently, but deeply. There is a sense the quality of the poems is underpinned by Kiyoko’s understanding of the history and intent of the tanka form.

As poets from English-speaking countries, there are things we can learn from these poems. For example, we sometimes tend to write tanka with a focus more on image than emotion. Kiyoko’s writing reminds us that tanka are likely to have more impact when they convey emotion.

Conveying emotion, however, is not easy. When reading an English-language tanka, it can sometimes feel as though the idea for the poem has come first and the emotion has been added later. With Kiyoko’s tanka, on the other hand, it always seems the emotion has come first and the tanka has been built around it. Perhaps our tanka will be stronger if we take care to ‘feel’ before we write.

Here are two tanka Kiyoko wrote in Australia:

it is when
sea birds are telling me
of the approaching sunset
that I start realizing
I could have lived differently

a white dove
emerges all of a sudden
on the verandah —
someone’s spirit ambling
on the morning of departure

Kiyoko has had links with Australian poets for many years. For example, Kiyoko kindly wrote the Introduction to the book: 100 Tanka by 100 Poets of Australia and New Zealand (2013) edited by Amelia Fielden, Beverley George and Patricia Prime. In addition, Kiyoko spoke at the 2017 launch in Sydney of A Temple Bell Sounds, an anthology commemorating the first twenty-one issues of Eucalypt: a tanka journal.

As Kiyoko says in the Preface to Songs for Spirits, “I believe it is a wonderful and peaceful cultural activity if people with different backgrounds can exchange their hearts and sensitivities by using these small literary vehicles”.

Songs for Spirits includes a number of tanka which refer to locations in Japan. Consistent with the traditional Japanese aesthetic, these poems often acknowledge the transience of life:

a little stream
running through the field
in the village of Shiga —
these tall trees will last
long after I am gone

Songs for Spirits by Kiyoko Ogawa is a very enjoyable book which provides valuable lessons for English-language writers of tanka and other Japanese forms. From time to time, you might also see Kiyoko’s writing in the Australian tanka journal, Eucalypt.

If you would like to obtain a copy of Songs for Spirits, enquiries may be directed to: kiyoko66ogawa(at)gmail.com