Saturday, May 26, 2012

On Mokichi


Today, I returned to Kanagawa Modern Literary Museum to see the exhibition on Saito Mokichi's works, his personal belongings, and letters.  I was pleasantly surprised that they were scheduled to have a special event on Mokichi with lectures and a panel discussion.  One thousand yen included an admission to the exhibit, too.
It was all very interesting.  I listened to Mokichi's reading on tape .  As I've imagined before, yes, he had the wonderful northeast accent.  He was 14 years old when he went to Tokyo. That explained to me, besides his inclination to the language of the ancient manyo-shu, he had applied his northeast pronunciation into his tanka.  I think some beat or mora or whatever we call one sound of kana is sometimes missing in his tanka.  I'm far from an expert, but I'm pretty sure of it.  Of course, that doesn't make his work any less valuable.  It was fascinating to find out a lot of things today.  Now I enjoy reading his books.

2 comments:

ZACL said...

Accents often give thematic colouration, otherwise unknown. How it is received is a subjective matter.

I often find that English-speaking poets reading their own work, no matter which part of the world they are from, or which part of Britain they're from, make a dreary job of it. Actors, I find, mostly, bring much more life and meaning into the work.

How much is the entry fee worth in dollars Keiko? (Did you say 1000 Yen?)

keiko amano said...

ZACL,

About poets themselves read, it's probably true quite often. But in the US, I live pretty close to Hollywood, and we have many actors. I don't know how Britain is like on this subject, but compared to Japanese poets, Americans poets in our local group read their work well. And I had ten different members read my chapters.

Also, maybe because I'm not used to British English, but I often cannot understand some British actors speak. I can understand fine actors like Helen Mirren and so on, but I often cannot understand other supporting actors in minor roles.

Can you understand American actors speak in Hollywood movies?

About 1000 yen, I used to say 10 dollars, but right now, it's about 13 dollars. I think Euro is 10. It is reasonable, but most of time in Japan, tickets are expensive compared to the U.S. First of all, to visit a reading in the U.S., we usually don't need to pay in the first place.