Fourth Hoshi-to-Mori International Tanka Contest Comments on the Selection, Japanese Field 　With the great interest, we have been expecting to see how to sing such too vast a theme as 'the sea.' There have been an anxiety that a number of works would tend to become idealistic as one person would sing the sea that gives birth to all the lives and occupies the greater part of the earth. But, the selection has progressed with a belief in which there should be such tanka, though the number would be less, by those writers the reality of whase soul night catch the sea. WAKAME-OI UMI-YORI-AGARU AMA-TACHINO HIWO-FURI-KOBOSI ISO-MICHIWO-YUKU Shouldering wakame (seawees), coming up out of the sea. Woman divers, swinging to shed sunshine, go along the path by the beach. 　This tanka, composed by Ms. Chiyo Asahi, selected as the 2nd Supplementary prize, appeals to the eyes of every reader who can see the scene as a beautiful image. To woman divers, the sea is their place of work, and originally we expect the writer to sing their relation with the sea. But, this tanka sings about their backs who are going back to their daily lives on the shore after finishing their works. The poet, by not reading the sea directly, has succeeded to express the lives of woman divers being protected by the sea. It is remarkable to have sung the backs of woman divers as 'swinging to shed sunshine.' Further, the 1st line 'WAKAME OHI' is considered to be 'WAKAME OHI-TE.' KONO-UMI-NI SANKOTSU-SARE-SI KIMI-NARIKI NAMI-HITA-HITA-TO ASINI-YOSE-KURU Over this ocean, in the shape of bones, you have been scatterd. Little waves are lapping against my feet in the waters. 　In this tanka, composed by Mr. Kazuo Ueda, selected as the 1st Supplementary prize, the distant past coexists with the present. The 1st 3 lines sing about the past and the poet with barefeet gets in the waters which make him remember it. There, he gets in touch with his late loved one, which is sung as if not skillfully. But, these lapping against him are not only waves but various thouts are lapping also against his heart, which brings about deep impression. At first, we had an impression that the word 'feet' was better to he replaced by 'heart', 'myself' or 'shore', but we found the 'feet' to be the word of real feeling after we sang it. SAKANA-DEMO TORI-DEMO-HITO-DEMO NAKU-NATTE KURETE-YUKU-MADE UMI-WO-MITE-IRU Not a fish, not a bird, nor even a man, I've been gazing at the sea until the sun sets and it gets dark. 　This tanka is composed by some power of the sea. There might be fish swimming in the sea and some birds flying in front over it which the Grand Prize winning poet, Ms. Tai Matsuo was gazing. Although she recognizes herself gazing at the sea, she is not able to tell of herself as the subject or not so. As stated above, we can feel a world into which the individual and the sea become uniting. Further, while proceeding to sing the lines, the power of the melody becomes clear gradually, and as you come to the last line, you can feel clearly the state of mind getting into nothingness in the tanka is not the rhetoric but the reality as the poet feels, which becomes the power of this tanka. The above are the comments. The Selection Committee, Japanese Field, Hoshi-to-Mori International Tanka Contest Translated from the Japanese original into English by: Misao Okimoto Go to the award of the 4th contest Go to the top Copyright(C)2001 Hoshi-to-Mori, All Rights Reserved.