Today's poem
BBC radio 4 programme: "Shuntaro Tanikawa: A Poet's Japan"
(on-air: 16:30 (GMT) 10th May, 2020)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j12m
The contents were sophisticated and conversations and readings were performed in a relaxed atmosphere. It was striking for me that a poet and translator William I. Elliott told that, referring to Tanikawa's poem, the Japanese life was depicted as 'open-ended' (run-on) using the flow of river water, compared with American and English ones as 'closed-ended'. The mention of the contrast between the West and the East was an excellent metaphor that can never be said by Japanese people, evoking metempsychosis in main features of Buddhist thought that can also be found in Greek one. Different from Christianity as monotheism. Hearing the programme, I feel that the Buddhism thought seems to be a sort of ethics, not a religion.
(wood sculptures by Katsura Funakoshi)
BBC radio 4 programme: "Shuntaro Tanikawa: A Poet's Japan"
(on-air: 16:30 (GMT) 10th May, 2020)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j12m
The contents were sophisticated and conversations and readings were performed in a relaxed atmosphere. It was striking for me that a poet and translator William I. Elliott told that, referring to Tanikawa's poem, the Japanese life was depicted as 'open-ended' (run-on) using the flow of river water, compared with American and English ones as 'closed-ended'. The mention of the contrast between the West and the East was an excellent metaphor that can never be said by Japanese people, evoking metempsychosis in main features of Buddhist thought that can also be found in Greek one. Different from Christianity as monotheism. Hearing the programme, I feel that the Buddhism thought seems to be a sort of ethics, not a religion.
(wood sculptures by Katsura Funakoshi)
