by Hiroaki Sato
Suzuki Shizuko may well have been a victim of the harsh economic conditions brought on by Japan’s defeat in August 1945, followed by the Occupation. She referred to herself as shōfu 娼婦, which can be translated, bluntly, as “prostitute”. The writer Saitō Sanki, in writing about the time in Japan following the Second World War, observed that “Any woman, as long as she was a woman, didn’t have to worry about starvation.” But it seems there may have been other reasons as well.
Shizuko was born in Tokyo, in 1919, and attended a five-year women’s higher school. While a student, in 1938, her haiku began to appear in The Sea of Trees (Jukai), a haiku magazine edited and published by Matsumura Kyoshū, who would duly become her “teacher.” In 1939 she attended a technical drafting school, and upon graduation was employed by a machine tool manufacturer, and then later in the design division of Toshiba.
Shizuko had extraordinary luck with her writing: in early 1946 she was paid ¥500 (nearly equivalent to a policeman’s annual salary at the time) for her first book of haiku, Spring Thunder (Shunrai). Thereafter Shizuko’s haiku began to appear in various haiku magazines with those of established haiku poets. They were discussed in forums, and special issues on her appeared.
In 1948 Shizuko was 28, unmarried but (unhappily) engaged, and pregnant. Her haiku from that year suggest she aborted the foetus and buried it herself, broke off the engagement, and then moved to Gifu, possibly following a GI with whom she was involved. She took up dancing and started working for a “dance hall,” actions tantamount to becoming a prostitute. In June 1950 the Korean War erupted. In October she began living with a black GI named, possibly, Kelly Kracke. In May 1951, when her GI-lover was stationed at the Korean front, she followed. In June she started sending “masses” of haiku to her haiku editor-teacher Kyoshū. She returned to Japan three months later, possibly seriously wounded, only to move to Yokohama when her lover was transferred there on his way to being sent back to the United States.
She published her second selection, Ring (Yubiwa), in early 1952, then disappeared. From her own afterword to Ring and from unpublished haiku, we may presume that she committed suicide.
Much of this information comes from Kawamura Ranta, Shizuko: Shōfu to yobareta haijin o otte (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2011), which includes all of Shizuko’s haiku.1
横濱に人と訣れし濃霧かな
Yokohama ni hito to wakareshi nōmu kana
At Yokohama I parted with my love: the dense fog
欲るこころ手袋の指器に觸るる
Horu kokoro tebukuro no yubi ki ni fururu2
Desiring heart: my fingers in a glove touch the thing
中年の男の魅力鳥雲に
Chūnen no otoko no miryoku tori kumo ni
A middle-aged man’s charm: bird in a cloud3
アマリリス娼婦に似たる気の動き
Amaririsu shōfu ni nitaru ki no ugoki
Amaryllis: my mind resembling a hooker moves
積乱雲西ゆ頭上本能を恥ず
Sekiran’un nishi yu zujō honnō o hazu
Thunderhead: from the west above my head ashamed of instinct
節操や朝ひとときの葡萄の葉
Sessō ya asa hitotoki no butō no ha
Chastity: morning for a moment a leaf of grape
ひらく寒木瓜浮気な自分におどろく
Hiraku kanboke uwakina jibun ni odoroku
Open cold flowering quince:4 my flirty self surprises me
ほろろ山吹婚約者を持ちながらひとを愛してしまつた5
Hororo yamabuki kon’yakusha o mochinagara hito o aishiteshimatta
Fluttering Kerria rose: though I have a fiancé I’ve ended up loving someone else
あはれ指紋すべての娼婦とられたり
Aware shimon subete no shōfu toraretari
Pity: fingerprints taken from all the hookers
ダンサーも娼婦のうちか雪消の葉
Dancer mo shōfu no uchi ka yukige no ha
Dancers too are hookers aren’t they: thawing leaves
売春や鶏卵にある掌の温み
Baishun ya keiran ni aru te no nukumi
Prostitution: warmth of a chicken egg that’s in my palm
娼婦またよきか熟れたる柿食うぶ
Shōfu mata yoki ka uretaru kaki taubu
Being a hooker’s good too: eating a ripe persimmon
あきのあめ衿の黑子をいはれけり
Aki no ame eri no hokuro o iwarekeri
In autumn rain someone pointed to a mole on my nape
湯の中に乳房いとしく秋の夜
Yu no naka ni chibusa itoshiku aki no yoru
In the hot bath my breasts are dear this autumn night
くちびるのかはきに耐ゆる夜ぞ長き
Kuchibiru no kawaka ni tayuru yo zo nagaki
Putting up with the thirst of my lips the night is long
ダンサーになろか凍夜の驛間歩く
Dancer ni naro ka tōya no ekima aruku
Shall I be a dancer: on freezing night I walk between stations
春雪の不貞の面て擲ち給へ
Haruyuki no futei no omote uchitamae
In spring snow please slap my face of infidelity
體内にきみが血流る正坐に耐ふ
Tainai ni kimi ga chi nagaru seiza ni tau
In my body your blood flows I endure sitting erect
肉感に浸りひたるや熟れ石榴
Nikukan ni hitarihitaru ya mure zakuro
Immersed in sensuality: ripe pomegranate
好きなものは玻璃薔薇雨驛指春雷
Suki na mono wa ruri bara ame aki yubi shunrai
What I like: crystal roses rains stations fingers spring thunder
すでに戀ふたつありたる雪崩かな
Sudeni koi futatsu aritaru nadare kana
Already there are two loves running: an avalanche
まぐはひのしづかなるあめ居とりまく
Maguwai no shidukana ame i-torimaku
Lovemaking: a quiet rain stays and surrounds us
裸か身や股の血脈あをく引き
Hadakami ya mata no ketsumyaku aoku hiki
Naked body: blood vessels on the thighs trail blue
情慾や亂雲とみにかたち變へ
Jōyoku ya ran’un tomini katachi kae
Lust: thunderheads rapidly change their shapes
月夜にておもひつづくるあらぬこと
Tsukiyo nite omoi tsudukuru aranu koto
At this moon I keep thinking of what isn’t quite right
黑人と踊る手さきやさくら散る
Kokujin to odoru tesaki ya sakura chiru
At my hands dancing with a black man cherry blossoms scatter
花の夜や異國の兵と指睦び
Hana no yo ya ikoku no hei to yubi mutsubu
Flower night: with a soldier of a foreign land finger-mate
霙れけり人より貰ふ錢の額
Mizorekeri hito yori morau zeni no gaku
Sleeting: the sum of dough I get from a man
北風のなか昂ぶり果ての泪ぬぐふ
Kitakaze no naka takaburihate no namida nugū
Amid north wind at end of climax I wipe tears
雷こんこん死びとの如き男の手
Yuki konkon shibito no gotoki otoko no te
Snow falls falls: the hand of a cadaver-like man
菊は紙片の如く白めりヒロポン缺く
Kiku wa shihen no gotoku shiromeri Hiropon kaku
The chrysanthemum whitens like paper pieces: Hiropon6 inadequate
コスモスなどやさしく吹けど死ねないよ
Kosumosu nado yasashiku fukedo shinenai yo
Cosmos and things gently blow but I can’t die
遊廓へ此の道つづく月の照り
Yūkaku e kono michi tuduku tsuki no teri
To a pleasure house this road leads in the moonshine
夏みかん酸つぱしいまさら純潔など
Natsumikan7 suppashi imasara junketsu nado
Summer citrus sour now the hell with virginity
黑人兵の本能強し夏銀河
Kokujinhei no honnō tsuyoshi natsu-gkinga
The black soldier’s instinct strong: summer Galaxy
霧五千海里ケリー・クラッケへだたり死す
Kiri gosen kairi Kerii Kurakke hedatari shisu
Fog 5,000 nautical miles Kelly Kracke separated dies
- The original version of this article was revised for Juxtapositions 3.1 and JuxtaThree by Jim Kacian. ↩
- The Chinese character ki 器 means “vehicle,” “receptacle,” but here suggests “phallus.” ↩
- An allusion to Bashō’s この秋はなんで年よる雲に鳥 / kono aki wa nande toshiyoru kumo ni tori / This autumn, why do I grow old? In clouds a bird. ↩
- The flowering quince (Chaenomeles lagenaria Koidz) puts on orange-red or pink blossoms. The kind mentioned here blooms in winter, hence the Japanese name is kanboke, “cold quince.” ↩
- This piece utterly ignores the 5-7-5-syllable pattern and has far more than seventeen syllables, making it read like any of the “free-rhythm” (jiyū-ritsu) haiku advocated by Kawahigashi Hekigodō and others, although it did include the haikuesque kigo, “Kerria rose” (yamabuki), large, pompom-like double yellow flowers (Kerria japonica ‘Pleniflora’). ↩
- Hiropon was the pharmaceutical company Dai-Nippon Seiyaku’s trademark for methamphetamine, which was commonly used during the war to suppress fatigue. In the years immediately following the war it became the most common drug though its use was supposed to be limited to certain medical purposes, and thus became a social problem. Subsequently, a law banned its use. ↩
- Natsumikan, “summer orange,” (Citrus natsudaidai) is a species of citrus that has a striking resemble to grapefruit in appearance and size, but it was generally sour and was thought to be preferred by pregnant women. ↩