The poem I chose is by Kyotaro (Shoichi) Komuro and the translation reads as follows:
Passed guard tower without glancing up before summer daybreak
This poem stood out to me because of the story that was created within these short lines. In line 1, the speaker sets the situation. From the context, I know this is an internment camp but even without context the words invoke the image of some sort of prison; prisons have guard towers. The second line sets the tone of the poem, which is fearful. The speaker does not even want to glance at the guard in the tower. The only reason this could be is fear of what the guard in the tower might do to lock eyes with the speaker. There is an unbalanced power dynamic that has been established both physically and symbolically. Towers are tall structures and the guard would be at the top of that structure. If the speaker passes this structure, they would be on the ground. This situation is confirmed by the phrase “glanced up” in line 2. So, we have the physicality of one person higher and one lower. This is also symbolic of the actual power dynamics within the internment camps. Japanese-Americans were at the mercy of the American government and any officers working at the internment camps. Those officers/guards held all the power. The poem’s final line sets the season that the poem was written in, summer. Knowing that the poem was written in the Stockton internment camp and how small the apartments were, it would’ve been an uncomfortably, hot summer. This line also lets the reader know that the speaker and all others in the internment camps were under watch 24 hours a day. Daybreak is another way to say sunrise, so the guard was on duty during the earliest hours of the morning.
Through this short poem, Komuro skillfully expresses the power dynamic held between the Japanese-Americans and the internment camp guards. Through imagery and symbolism, he captures a snapshot of the daily life enforced on the Japanese-American internees in the Central Valley.
I read this haiku several times, and each time I read it, my mind presented one image, and this image became more vivid and concrete through each reading. The image I envision when reading this poem is an isolated dystopian place where the speaker is trapped. The speaker is trapped because of the withering weeds; even though the weeds are dying, so many weeds are wrapped around this person, which limits their ability to roam freely, essentially losing agency of themselves. Now, I also began thinking of how this haiku is essential evidence of the maltreatment Japanese Americans experienced when being forced into internment camps. That is because haikus were some of the limited ways Japanese Americans could speak out against their everyday mistreatment. When incorporating the history of the internment camps Japanese Americans endured, the image I see is similar but now includes the isolation they must have experienced.
The new image I envision now is Japanese Americans who are in internment camps, and the internment camp is the oppression that the speaker is illustrating. But there is also an image of weeds that are withering. When I think of withering weeds, I imagine a plant with dried weeds dying, but I also envision that the flowers within the plant cannot grow because of the abundance of weeds. So, with that inference, the image of Japanese Americans being flowers that want to bloom (have agency of themselves) but cannot because of the withering weeds (interment camps they were forced into). And even though these weeds are supposed to be dead, there are so many that I interpreted it would be hard to eliminate. Essentially, I get the image of Japanese Americans who are living in a real-life dystopia, isolated, and the weeds (the reinforcement of internment camps) are too strong, which leaves them powerless.
Ozawa born and raised in Japan lived a life of hardship and overcoming, he left his life in Japan for the betterment of his life and the fact that he stood up for his rights, as he was against the way that Japan was controlled by the government at the time. He parted ways with his native land of Japan, living in the time of tension in Japan and tension in the United States towards the Japanese. Although Ozawa did not himself live through the internment camps that were built for the Japanese people during WWII he was around in that time, although he was at an elder age. Ozawa saw the freestyle of the haiku poems as a better means of getting messages across and a better way of expression than the traditional forms of poetry, which is why he found fascination and interests in this type of poetry. Ozawa would go on to live in the Central Valley, organizing and taking part in the Valley Ginsha Haiku Kai, a group of poets who found themselves in the art of haiku poetry. They would proceed to right poems about their experiences in the United States as part of the Japanese community.
The poem that caught my attention was one written my Ozawa that reads:
“Sensing permanent separation
as you left me in extreme heat
on gravel road”
This poem can be connected to the way that the Japanese community of the United States felt when they were taken from their homes and put in internment camps by United States officials as well as being made inferior, not being allowed to go/reside in certain locations due to them being Asian. Imagery is used in this poem to paint the picture of what the people taken away lived through. Although they were literally “left” in “extreme heat,” the fact that it is mentioned in its own line helps emphasize and has the reader better understand that there was horrible discomfort in these camps, and although the government tried to mask the camps and claim that this was only for the safety of the American people, the Japanese weren’t treated humanely in these camps, not only living in cramped horrible conditions, but also having to face the extreme weather of the rural location of the camps. The imagery of the “gravel road” allows the reader to imagine the path that the people had to take. When paving a path gravel is commonly used, this path had gravel, but this path paved with gravel lead them to hell. This path lead them to a place of discomfort and deprive them of their freedom on this supposed “land of the free.” I left the first line of this haiku for last as it hits the reader very hard, the “sensing” of “permanent separation” the feeling that you will never have what you had once had again, the separation from that life that the Japanese had worked to hard so build. This line captivated the true feelings of the Japanese people and the feeling that they will never be set free from this cage that they have been put in. Their life and liberty stripped away from them. This short poem, in such few lines manages to captivate the lives of an entire community, who was shunned by a “free country.”
Given the video, it saddens me that many Japanese-Amerians had to deal with the criticism and backlash from others. Rather than realizing from the outside perspective, Americans immediately assumed that ALL Japanese-Americans were dangerous and not trustworthy.
The poet, Yotenshi Agari, really caught my attention because in the passage, it informs that he gre mums in Central California. Mums —which withhold different symbolisms across cultures— represents rebirth and enduring life. The haiku poem is, “Moonlit summer sky/ same black houses/ standing in rows.” The imagery invoked in the haiku poem captures the horrendous, daily life that these internees experience. They had no other freedom to go elsewhere. Referring to the video, they attempted to bring life and excitement by bringing education, religion and agriculture.
Line 1, “Moonlight summer sky” clearly tells the audience that the poem takes place at night. Like many other internees, Agari would most likely stay up during the night, probably reminiscing his life before being held at the camps. The lines that really stood out to me were lines 2 and 3; “Same black houses/standing in rows (Line 2 and 3),” Agari gives off a solemn, monotonous tone, clearly telling us, the audience, that there was nothing else. That there is nothing else but the moonlit summer sky, that casts it’s rays onto the “same” houses. The “same” harsh conditions. Again, referring to the video, the internees attempted to “build a community.” So, I believe that Agari was trying to build a “sense of community.” Much like in most neighborhoods, there are rows of homes, all build with similar structures.
Perhaps one of the hardest things to learn about in your country’s history is all the atrocities that were committed during times of war. This is no different when it comes to the Japanese internment camps during World War II. During this time, the Japanese and Japanese Americans at the time were forced out of their homes and into these camps, living under horrible conditions and constant surveillance. It is through these conditions that they write these poems in. Haiku, the poetry form that we’re learning about this week, has a more image focus.
This particular poem by Reiko Gomyu is pretty straightforward, depicting a depressing image of the experience. The “feeling of oppression” caught my eye especially, because it rather shows how restricted the speaker feels, like they’re always being watched and could feel the weight trapping them. The “withering weeds/are dense” paints this picture of a desolate place, almost like a wasteland. And I think this poem can also be symbolic of the Japanese people in these camps. The “withering weeds” could also symbolize the people in the camp because of their limited resources.
It’s amazing how this piece of poetry conveys not only an image but perhaps also a symbolic meaning behind it. It creates this feeling of hopelessness that is expressed only through an image alone, and yet also capture the experience of daily life through symbolic meaning.
They say a poet’s words will often depict his or her inner most thoughts and allow the world to decipher (or at least attempt to) the intent and message. The Japanese poetry style called Haiku was actually very popular during during the war when, just like the concentration camps in Hitler’s time, the Japanese were forced into captivity because the USA questioned their loyalty despite them being born and raised in America. Haikus allowed them to essentially vent to themselves, and perhaps those around who suffered as well, about what they were going through during such difficult times. Reading Ozawa’s haikus, readers can really feel the pain and desperation of freedom. It’s heartbreaking to read and know about the tragedy they had to endure just because of their ethnicity. The one that stood out to me the most was “From the window of despair/ May sky/ there is always tomorrow” (Lines 1-3). This haiku instantly gave me a sense of hope, hope that one day they will get on the other side and look back to the level of strength it took to make it out. It represents something positive in a time filled with nothing but negativity and horror (ironic). In the first line when the poet writes “From the window of despair” (Line 1), I imagine a Japanese child/teen looking out the window understanding the circumstances they were in but holding onto the slightest chance of hope that this would one day be over. I emphasize on the child or teen part because this haiku reminds me of the book The War Outside by Monica Hesse, which is a story from a teen’s perspective where she tries to make friends within the camps in order to find some type of light and happiness despite everything around them falling down. Another reason why I emphasize a younger person’s point of view rather than an adult is because I believe that children have that fresh and innocent mindsets that we adults sometime skip over. In situations like what the Japanese in America were in, many accepted defeat, but children bring out that light of hope with their pure intentions that everything would be okay even if it was unlikely. Just like the haiku, the book represented some level of positivity and I think this viewpoint is so important because it sends such a powerful message to the readers. Going back to the haiku, the last line reads “there is always tomorrow” (Line 3) and this final line really has a special place in my heart because I am a firm believer of the message behind it: hope. The imagery that the poet displays here is the child or teen telling themselves that it’s all going to be okay even if deep down they are trying to convince themselves too.
As we may all know World War 2 began in the year 1941 and with this war came much destruction, death, dehumanization, and separation to the Japanese American families. As time passed more and more destruction was caused by the war and we know this because of the survivors that have been able to share their stories and memories with us. We learned about these moments in history through many different forms of record keeping and one of them being poetry, more specifically haiku. This form of poetry was first invented by Matsuo Basyou (Basho) during the 17th century as a form of expressing one’s feelings and day-to-day life.
Imagery is invoked in haiku for the purpose to allow the audience a glimpse of what is experienced by the Japanese community in the internment camps. The diction utilized to help invoke the imagery is what really helps the poem capture the feelings and emotions experienced in these internment camps. As seen in one of Shiho Okamoto’s haiku “Iron fence immovable/over the mountain/winter sunrise” with these simple three sentences we can already see that they were being kept enclosed by “iron fences” as if they were animals or not human beings. When the author mentions “immovable” we can see that they are being kept against their will and can’t do anything about it because of the immovable fences, they weren’t just figurative they were literal and physically in place. With these, we can already see a feeling of desperation within the poet of being behind those fences day after day, season after season, and having to wake up to the same pain every day. Many times “winter sunrise” is thought of with a positive and beautiful connotation, however, through the imagery of this haiku I get a feeling that it’s the complete opposite. It’s not as nice of a view with “iron fences” in place and the feeling of being kept against your will and treated wrongly for so long. This poem properly utilized its diction to convey its personal experience in the form of imagery so that the audience could at least imagine what they went through for so long.
Sandra Landa-Sanchez
Barbed wires and camp barracks at former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau on January 23, 2021 in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland. January 27 will mark the 76th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. This year’s commemoration ceremony will be held online due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
During World War II, many Japanese-Americans were affected by the cruel nature given to them while they were fighting for this country. No one should have to endure living in an internment camp due to their race, unfortunately all Japanese descendants and citizens of America were forced into these camps due to mistrust between their culture and the government because of the war. During this time, thousands of Japanese-Americans sought out happiness by writing poems and haikus just like this group of individuals, Fresno Valley Ginsha Poets, did in 1932.
One haiku that stood out to me by Ozawa, the leader of the club, was “At daybreak/ stars disappear/ where do I discard my dreams?”. Ozawa begins the haiku with, “At daybreak”, he is setting the stage for what time of day it is, bright and early in the morning. It seems the speaker has been waiting to watch the sun rise. Then he says, “stars disappear”, like he has been up all night star gazing. Ultimately, Ozawa ends with “where do I discard my dreams?”, questioning himself, reality, and time. The imagery in this haiku captures how quick the nights go by, while the days are dreaded, in these internment camps. It also shows that some Japanese-Americans, such as Ozawa, stay up through the night wishing upon stars.
As we review history, we dive into America’s past concerning Japanese Americans and their experiences dealing with racism and prejudice. Presented to us are choices of very concise poems that depict the emotion and tangible setting from Japanese internment camps across the states during the second World War. Poetry was a consequence of these traumatic times for many victims, they helped exude vexation and dejection. Haikus in particular possess ways of expressing vehement sentiments in a mere 3 lines. Neiji Ozawa, a Japenese American poet, has written a vast amount of haikus that convey his moments in the internment camps. Through imagery, Ozawa captures the apprehension and melancholy these individuals felt as the days fled.
Ozawa begins his haiku painting a somber scene by a window where the speaker senses anguish yet continues their certainty on a blissful ending. Ozawa writes, “From a window of despair/ May sky/ there is always tomorrow” (Lines 1-3). A “window of despair” is a discernable depiction of an individual being silenced by glass as the outside world continues on without them. Ozawa uses visual imagery in the first line to portray to the reader what it precisely feels like to be locked away and only witness the gravel leading to the horizon. In these internment camps, Japanese Americans were residents in tight spaces as well as caged by barbed wire fences to enforce little to no escape. In lines 2 and 3, “May sky/ there is always tomorrow” there is a feeling of yearning and ambition that is embedded. The sky is limitless as well as the many days we have to live a fulfilling life, which is what I believe Ozawa is illustrating for the reader through visual imagery. I can imagine the days dragging on in these internment camps. The monotonous endeavors become tangled and the internees must have lost track of time on a daily basis. Ozawa constructs a beautiful poem from the tribulation he and others had to endure.
Introduction to Poetry 