SANTOKA: A Translation With Photographic Images, English translations by Emiko Miyashita & Paul Watsky, with photographs by Hakudo Inoue. PIE Books, 2006, 400 pp., ¥3,800 (paper)
These two titles have much in common. Both pay tribute to a free-form haiku poet of great popularity in Japan, and now overseas as well. At the same time, the tributes are made both visually and verbally, combining the poems with pictorial imagery. The result, in each case, is a collection of unusual aesthetic interest.
Taneda Santoka (1882-1940), the poet featured in these collections, had an exceptionally tragic and unhappy life, marred first by his mother's suicide when he was 10. After several failures in adult life, he was rescued by a Buddhist priest and spent some time in a temple, eventually taking Buddhist vows himself. Thereafter he lived as a wandering mendicant, garbed in black, and tried to subsume his unhappiness in haiku and heavy drinking.