Kokinshu Commentary -- 5

Kokinshu Commentary – 5

Book 1 – Spring

5. Anonymous. Topic Unknown

O warbler perching
On a bough of the plum tree,
You come with your song
To welcome in the springtime
Yet snowflakes still flutter down

Comment: This is the first mention of the plum tree (ume). The plum is an early bloomer, often blooming before the last snow has melted. It is, therefore, a sign of spring, but the earliest part of spring.

I think this is one of those unsophisticated Tanka that appear scattered through the Kokinshu. I could see it included in a “Child’s Garden of Tanka” collection. Sometimes critics of the Kokinshu have pointed out that the editors include Tanka of questionable value, while not including Tanka of high quality that were available at the time. Often these admired Tanka were picked up in later royally commissioned Tanka collections such as the Shinkokinshu.

I think, however, that this kind of criticism misses the mark. In the west, and among moderns generally, there is the idea that all poems in an anthology should be of the first rank. Editors of poetry magazines often have that view and sometimes explicitly say they are only interested in poems that are unusual, original, or stand out. But that’s not the way the Kokinshu editors worked. My sense is that what the editors were attempting was a kind of record of actual usage; that is to say a collection that reflected how Tanka worked in the lives of the Japanese people. So Tanka were selected that have various functions from the highly literary to the folk song to the nursery rhyme style.

Personally, I have grown to admire this esthetic variety; I think of it as one of the great strengths of the Kokinshu. This approach also had a lasting influence on later developments in Japanese poetry, specifically in Renga. Not every verse in a Renga is supposed to stand out. Some Renga verses will be “background” verses. But these background verses serve to highlight the strong, memorable, foreground verses in a Renga.

In composing a Renga it was considered acceptable to write a “good enough” verse. I think that the editors of the Kokinshu included some Tanka that were “good enough” even if they were not show pieces. I understand that even some modern Tanka poets in Japan will collect their Tanka using the same esthetic; that is to say some Tanka are “good enough” to include, while only a few in the publication are sparkling jewels.

I find this approach restful and soothing. As a poet I think there is an important lesson to be gleaned here. And that is simply that when writing a poem it is OK to write a poem that is “good enough”. Just as a potter will make “good enough” cups, or a baker will make “good enough” bread.

The links between Tanka 5 and four are, first, the warbler, the snow, and the technique of personification. The shift takes place by adding in Tanka 5 the sonic element of the warbler’s song which is a new element. If one reads Tanka 4 and 5 together, the first sonic element is this song of the warbler. Actually, this is the first mention of a sound, none of the previous Tanka refer to the sonic world. This re-enforces my view that Tanka 4 was a kind of new beginning for the Spring Series of Book 1 because a more complete picture of Spring is being presented that includes both the visual and the sonic domains.