Tonna (a pen name often romanized as Ton'a) was a poet and lay-monk who lived from 1289 to 1372. Born as Nikaido Sadamune into a military family, he formally entered the conservative Buddhist Tendai sect when he came of age, and also pursued a long-held interest in poetry by becoming a disciple of Nijo Tameyo, head of the Nijo poetic house.
It is thus that Tonna has become known as an apologist for the most conservative poetic school of his period, a reputation that has resulted in a certain lack of attention being paid his life and work. Japanese commentators down the ages have preferred more exciting poets from earlier periods, and contemporary Western scholars have followed this lead.
Scholar Steven Carter seeks to remedy this through the first full-length study of the priest-poet to appear in English. In "Just Living," Carter offers a reasoned biography of Tonna, a translation of 134 of his poems, 16 examples of his linked verse, and selections from one of his prose narratives.
The neglect of Tonna occurred, he suggests, because the poet was a conspicuous target for anyone reacting against the old traditions that he was said to represent. Tonna's work was indeed traditional, and the poet was a believer in continuing the time-honored customs of the imperial court and dismissing anything unorthodox.
During his life, he was celebrated in orthodox circles (at the time, of course, there were few others). He attended all the poetry parties and contests in Kyoto and knew just about everyone. He became known as one of the "Four Guardian Kings of Classical Poetry," and was thus indispensable as a defender and spokesman for the conservative cause. It was consequently no surprise when he was officially called upon to complete the new imperial anthology, the "Shin shuishu," when his mentor and the official editor, Nijo, suddenly died.
Though Tonna then encountered some criticism for including so many of his own poems in the collection, this was thought to be no serious conflict of interest since there were many precedents, the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiakira approved, and, in any event, a poet had to look out for his own interests.
Indeed, this one had already built himself a rather substantial residence surrounded by gardens, in which he displayed plum trees from Naniwa, cherry trees from Yoshino, bush clover from Miyagino and maples from Tatsuta-san, each coming laden with poetic associations.
Not that these served as direct inspiration. Though we now think of the haiku master sitting under the flowering cherry or squatting beside the ancient pond and penning poems as petals fall and frogs jump, this was not at all the way that poetry was written, at least not in conservative Kyoto circles 800 years ago. Carter points out that this particular poetic culture was indeed using values far different from our own. Poets sat around and composed on conventional topics, making certain that all of the many rules governing poetic forms were rigorously but, if possible, elegantly followed. The translator thus hopes that "our involvement with the poem is only enhanced when we approach it in a way that takes into account the way it was produced."
The poetry is no less because of the way it was produced. Tonna was primarily a teacher and he numbered among his students both the statesman Nijo Yoshimoto and the shogun Ashikaga Takauji. It was Yoshimoto who passed on Tonna's credo: "What Tonna always said was that one should put new meaning into one's poems, delicately and no exaggeration, stringing the words together to beautiful effect." New wine was poured into old bottles, and a general aesthetic conclusion was the aim; nature did not need be consulted.
For us today, such considerations are difficult to detect, important though they may be. The poems are both beautiful and beautifully translated (with the romaji given beneath so we may compare), and if they do not reach the epiphanies of much later haiku one must remember that they never tried to. The laid-back colloquialism suggested by the title of this book in no way reflects its content.
In reinstating the importance of the monk Tonna, Carter has called attention to a worthy exception to the popular view of Japanese poems as all instant insight. Tonna's poetry is insightful, but this is a different thing. It also creates a tone difficult to render. Since no bibliography is included in this edition (though there is otherwise all the expected scholarly paraphernalia) it is difficult to ascertain just how much prior translation there has been. Tonna certainly had a place in the 1961 "Japan Court Poetry" of Robert Brower and Earl Miner, but I know of no other.
In any event, these translations seem beautifully precise and their number gives us the clearest profile yet of the neglected poet.
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