Saitō Sanki (西東三鬼; May 15, 1900 – ) was a Japanese ''

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or s ...

'' poet.

Early life and career

Saitō Sanki was born Saitō Keichoku on May 15, 1900 in

Tsuyama is a city in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 102,294 and a population density of 200 persons per km². The total area was 185.73 km². The area increased in 2005 as the result of a merger with adjacent t ...

, Okayama Prefecture, in western

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island se ...

. His father was a school superintendent and amateur artist, poet, and calligrapher, and his mother was the daughter of a

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

retainer. His parents died when he was six and eighteen, respectively, and care of the family fell to his brother Takeo, who was twenty years older. Saitō attended the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

school Aoyama Gakuin, but dropped out intending to become a painter. Bowing to family obligation to pursue a more practical career, Saitō graduated from Nippon Dental College in 1925. Along the way he took up riding and earned a dancing teacher's license. Both before and after his marriage, he took a number of lovers and generally lived licentiously. Takeo invited his brother and new wife to British Singapore, where Takeo was a manager of the

NYK Line Nippon Yūsen Kabushiki Kaisha (Japan Mail Shipping Line), also known as NYK Line, is a Japanese shipping company and is a member of the Mitsubishi ''keiretsu''. The company headquarters are located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It operates a flee ...

. Takeo bought a building for Saitō to use for his dental practice, but Saitō converted a room of the office into a ballroom and often closed the practice to play golf. Saitō thrived in the cosmopolitan Singapore, but bankruptcy, a case of

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...

, and rising anti-Japanese sentiment forced the Saitōs to return to Japan in 1929.

Poetry

After another failed dental practice in Japan, Saitō became head of dentistry at a hospital in Soto Kanda,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. A colleague there, a

urologist Urology (from Greek οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and '' -logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary-tract system and the reproductive org ...

, had been collecting ''haiku'' from patients who had written them during their lengthy treatments for

sexually transmitted infections Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral ...

, intending to publish them in a

mimeographed A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the pro ...

edition. He invited Saitō to contribute. Saitō was initially uninterested, thinking ''haiku'' "old-fashioned stuff", but he gave way to the repeated entireties and began to compose his own poems. Saitō later wrote "This is the way fate caught up with me, with venereal disease as its emissary." He took as his pen name "Sanki", which means "three demons". Despite starting at an uncharacteristically late age and eschewing any kind of mentorship or apprenticeship to a more experienced writer, Saitō quickly became a leading ''haiku'' poet. His first professionally published ''haiku'' appeared in 1933 in ''Somato ("''Revolving Lantern"), when he was thirty-three. He joined ''Kyōdai Haiku'', a Kyoto University campus publication, and transformed it into a leading ''haiku'' periodical. A bout of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

prompted Saitō to reassess his priorities, and he abandoned dentistry to devote his life to ''haiku,'' paying the bills with a desk job at a company owned by mountaineer Mita Yukio (1900-1989), a friend from Singapore. His ''haiku'' was nihilistic and cynical, freely abandoning established rules, and his work was popular and acclaimed. He published his first ''haiku'' collection, ''Flag,'' in 1940. Unfortunately, with an ultranationalist wartime government bent on repressing any hint of dissent, Saitō and other ''Kyōdai Haiku'' were arrested by the secret police in 1940. Saitō was imprisoned for over two months and upon release, forbidden to write.

Kobe

In 1942, Saitō permanently left his wife and teenage son in Tokyo and moved to the port city of Kobe. At first he lived in an old hotel filled with foreigners and

bargirl A bargirl is a woman who is paid to entertain patrons in a bar, either individually or, in some cases, as a performer. The exact nature of the entertainment varies widely from place to place; depending on the venue this can be individual enterta ...

s, but as

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

dragged on, fear of air raids prompted him to rent a large, crumbling rural house that was later dubbed the "Sanki Mansion." His interactions with colorful characters, sailors and soldiers on all sides of the conflict, and the black market for everyday necessities were chronicled in a series of stories that he published in the magazines ''Haiku'' and ''Tenrō'' in the 1950s. They were collected and translated into English as ''The Kobe Hotel.''

Postwar

In 1948, Saitō was again working as a hospital dentist and lived in Neyagawa,

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

. Again near bankruptcy, he took an offer from the Kadokawa Corporation to edit the monthly magazine ''Haiku'' and moved to Tokyo in 1954. He published three more ''haiku'' collections: ''Night Peaches'' (1948), ''Today'' (1951), and ''Transfiguration'' (1962). He married again, to Hotta Kikue, but characteristically had several dozen affairs. In late 1961, Saitō had an operation for stomach cancer. He died the next year, on April 1, 1962.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saito Sanki 1900 births 1962 deaths People from Okayama Prefecture 20th-century Japanese poets Japanese haiku poets