was a

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 (Japanese prosody), on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, ...

poet in Japan during the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. Sokotsu was a pen name and his real name was .

Life

Samukawa was born in

Matsuyama 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan and also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243541 househ ...

(now in

Ehime Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Ehime Prefecture has a population of 1,342,011 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 5,676 km2 (2,191 sq mi). Ehime Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the northeast, Toku ...

) on November 3, 1875. He became a student at ''Daisan Kōtō gakkō'' (now

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff = 3,978 (Total Staff) , students = 22 ...

) in 1894. Samukawa met Kawahigashi Hekigotō and

Takahama Kyoshi 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 ...

at this school. He fell under their influence and took part in . Samukawa was so absorbed in writing haiku that in the end, he dropped out of the school. He worked at the ''Kyoto Newspaper'' and the ''Osaka Asahi Newspaper'' and continued to contribute haiku to the magazine '' Hototogisu'' even while he worked. Samukawa went to

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, ...

and joined the staff of the newspaper ''Nippon'' in 1898. He met the journalist Kuga Katsunan and

Masaoka Shiki , pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡升), was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry, credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during ...

there. Samukawa became Shiki's pupil and studied the narrative prose, or the sketch in prose, that Shiki propounded. After Shiki's death, Samukawa stopped writing

Hokku is the opening stanza of a Japanese orthodox collaborative linked poem, ''renga'', or of its later derivative, ''renku'' (''haikai no renga''). From the time of Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694), the ''hokku'' began to appear as an independent poem, a ...

poetry and concentrated on writing prose, travel sketches and essays. He devoted the rest of his life from 1911 onwards to keeping Shiki's house and estate.

Works

* : A selection * : The introduction of Masaoka Shiki

References

* written by * written by {{DEFAULTSORT:Samukawa, Sokotsu Japanese essayists 1875 births 1954 deaths 20th-century Japanese poets 20th-century essayists Japanese haiku poets People from Matsuyama, Ehime