Yamaguchi Seishi (山口誓子; November 3, 1901 – ) 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

Yamaguchi Seishi was born on November 3, 1901, in Kyoto. His father, an electrical engineer, took him at age eleven to

Karafuto Prefecture Karafuto Prefecture ( ja, 樺太庁, ''Karafuto-chō''; russian: Префектура Карафуто, Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949. Karafuto became ter ...

on Sakhalin Island, where his grandfather ran a newspaper press. Yamaguchi left Karafuto permanently in 1917, but the desolate winter landscape there would feature often in his poetry. Yamaguchi attended the Third Higher School in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

and joined the student ''haiku'' society, where he met poet Sōjō Hino. In 1922, he met

Kyoshi Takahama was a Japanese poet active during the Shōwa period of Japan. His real name was ; Kyoshi was a pen name given to him by his mentor, Masaoka Shiki. Early life Kyoshi was born in what is now the city of Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture; his father, Ike ...

, the doyen of the traditionalist school of ''haiku'' centered on the magazine '' Hototogisu'' ("Cuckoo"). Kyoshi encouraged Yamaguchi and the latter's poems began to regularly appear in ''Hototogisu''. Yamaguchi attended Tokyo University, where he was a founding member of the Tokyo University Haiku Society. He graduated in 1926 with a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...

and began working for an

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 ...

commercial firm. He also came down with a serious of illnesses that would plague him for the rest of his life, eventually contracting

pleurisy Pleurisy, also known as pleuritis, is inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs and line the chest cavity ( pleurae). This can result in a sharp chest pain while breathing. Occasionally the pain may be a constant dull ache. Other sy ...

. In 1932, he released his first volume of ''haiku, Tōkō'' ("Frozen Harbor"). Along with ''Katsushika'' by Shūōshi Mizuhara, it is considered by critics to be one of the collections to have done the most to modernize the form. Yamaguchi wrote ''haiku'' on unconventional subjects such as steam engines, dance halls, skating rinks, board meetings, typists, sports, and parades. Eventually he broke with Kyoshi and the conservative ''Hototogisu'' school in 1935 and joined Shūōshi's publication ''Ashibi'' (" Staggerbush"). In 1948 he started his own publication, ''Tenrō'' ("Dog Star"), where he was joined by his disciple Hashimoto Takako (1899-1963), a poet who was sometimes called the "female Seishi". Yamaguchi eventually published over a dozen volumes of haiku, including ''Kōki'' ("Yellow Flag", 1935)'', Gekirō'' ("Raging Waves", 1944), ''

Wafuku There are typically two types of clothing worn in Japan: traditional clothing known as , including the national dress of Japan, the kimono, and , which encompasses all else not recognised as either national dress or the dress of another country. ...

'' ("Japanese Clothing", 1955), and ''Setsugaku'' (1985), and numerous essay collections.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamaguchi, Seishi Created via preloaddraft 1901 births 1994 deaths 20th-century Japanese poets People from Kyoto Japanese haiku poets