Monument To A Poet 正岡子規句碑

Verny Park is located right outside of JR Yokosuka Station, running along the harbor -- it used to be part of the Japanese Imperial Navy Base, and, back in the day, was closed to the public.

At the far end of the park, in the direction of the AEON Shopping Center, there is a place where several monuments have been placed.

I assumed they were all related to the Japanese Navy.  I have already described one of them, the Koku-I Kensho Kinen-To -- and, in later-on in this Blog, I will explain each of the others, one-by-one.

Here is how the Verny park monuments area looks:

So, I decided to start going right-to-left, and here is the first monument, which uses a gorgeous large rock (rose-colored granite?):

But, surprise, surprise! --- It is not about the old Japanese Navy, instead it memorializes a famous poet: Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902 -- he died so young)...

And on the stone itself, is a "haiku" poem which Masaoka wrote about Yokosuka:

横須賀や           Yokosuka ya            
只帆檣の           Tada ho-bashira
冬木立                Fuyu go-dachi

My attempt at a translation:

     Yokosuka, where
     Sail masts are like
     Tree-groves, this winter day...

Beauty captured forever, on a stone...

A short biography and a selection of his poems can be read here.

Japanese link:

正岡子規句碑｜横須賀市 (city.yokosuka.kanagawa.jp)

Monument Inscription:

"Yokosuka, a winter grove of masts"

In August 1888, Masaoka Shiki and a friend arrived in Uraga by steamer for a summer vacation and had fun in Yokosuka and Kamakura. The poem on the monument is an impression of the rows of hansho masts in Yokosuka harbor, and is included in the collection of haiku entitled “Kozan Ochiki” (“Cold Mountain Falling Trees”).

Masaoka Shiki was born in September 1867 in Onsen-gun, Iyo Province (present-day Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture), and his real name was Tsunenori. He had aspirations to become a politician when he was a student at Matsuyama Junior High School, but after moving to Tokyo, he turned to literature and entered the Department of Japanese Literature at Bunka University (now the University of Tokyo). He was an innovator in haiku, insisting on realism (sketching) and rejecting fantasy.  He expressed his ideas in the newspaper “Nihon” in the form of “Dassai Sho-oku" (1892) and “Haikai Compendium” (1898).  He wrote more than 20,000 haiku during his lifetime, and especially from 1892 to 1898, he created more than 1,000 haiku every year.  In the same year (1897), “Hototogisu” was launched, and since then it has attracted attention as a magazine of the Shiki school.  In the same year, he published “Uta Yomi ni Yofuru Sho” in “Nihon” (Japan) and started innovations in tanka poetry. This was an attempt to apply the sketching style he advocated in haiku to tanka as well.

Masaoka Shiki passed away in September 1902 at the age of 35, but his advocacy was succeeded in haiku by Takahama Kyoshi and Kawahigashi Hekigoto, and in tanka by Saito Mokichi, Shimaki Akihiko, and others of the “araragi” school.  The sketch writing he advocated also influenced subsequent literary figures such as Natsume Soseki and Ito Sachio.

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NEWS UPDATE --- Masaoka Shiki, a celebrated haiku poet in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), will be enshrined in the Go Hall of Fame, 15 years after he received similar accolades for his contributions to baseball.  Nihon Ki-in, the Japanese association in charge of the ancient board game, decided on Oct. 24 2017 to honor Shiki (1867-1902) as a person of merit during the 14th commendation committee meeting for the Go Hall of Fame.  Nihon Ki-in started naming go hall of famers in 2004.  Shiki, a many-sided cultural figure, wrote more than 30 haiku poems about go.  He also played and promoted the game of baseball and was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002.  Shiki will join other of persons of merit, whose portraits are displayed at Nihon Ki-in’s headquarters in the Ichigaya district of Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.  Go, a board game popular mainly in China, South Korea and Japan, involves two contestants placing black and white stones on a square grid.  The goal is to encircle the opponent’s stones and seize the most territory.  Its origin dates back thousands of years.