THE HIGHLIGHTS
Yosano Akiko was the pen name of Ho Sho and is known as one of the best poets from post-classical Japan. Her works pioneered feminism, socialism, and emotional explicitness, and were quite controversial in Japan. Although Yosano was known as an author, she was also a feminist, pacifist, and social reformer.
She remains one of the most notable and controversial poets of Japan.
The Controversial Poet
Yosano was born into a successful merchant family on December 7, 1878, near Osaka, Japan. From early childhood, she enjoyed reading literary works in her father’s expansive library. Due to her early onslaught of intelligence, at the age of 11 years old, Yosano was the family member most responsible for running the family business, which produced and sold yokan, a kind of confection.
Her avid interest in literature continued after her early childhood years, and when she was in high school, she began to subscribe to the poetry magazine, Myōjō (Bright Star). She would later become a prominent contributor to the magazine.
Growing up in late Meiji era Japan, Yosano was not allowed to interact with the opposite sex, to which she later attributes to her latent sexuality. She was not allowed to leave her home unaccompanied by an adult and claims she can count the number of times she crossed into another home’s threshold on one hand. Her childhood was extremely sheltered and restricted, which paved the way for her creativity to bloom.
“I realized for the first time how jaundiced, unfair, and dark my childhood was.” – Yosano upon reflecting on her childhood after marriage.
In 1900 she joined the Shinshisha (New Poetry Society) and began to contribute to the magazine Myōjō. At 24, she married writer and editor Yosano Tekkan after moving to Tokyo in 1901. Tekkan was a central figure in the Japanese Romantic movement and the founder of the New Poetry Society. She goes on to have 13 children, 11 of which lived to adulthood.
Igniting a Spark
After moving to Tokyo and marrying Tekkan, Yosano published her first volume of Tanka, titled Midaregami (Tangled Hair). Midaregami is a collection of 400 Tanka poems and was written as a diary of the imagery and inner workings of Yosano’s life during her courtship with Tekkan. Each poem presented a vivid image of a lively, free woman in an effort to depict her own sexual awakening.
Despite its critics, Midaregami was widely read and became a beacon for free-thinkers of her time. It was through this collection that Yosano created a name for herself and set the tone for modern feminist voices in Japan. Societal roles for Japanese women focused on them being gentle and modest. Yosano’s collection of Tanka challenged this concept and revolutionized the way women were perceived.
In 1912, her work Midaregami was making waves, and Yosano spent a year in France with her husband where she continued to write about her personal life and the modern woman’s point of view. In all, she wrote 20 collections of poetry, all of which were social criticism and opened doors for Japanese women on their views of sexuality.
Activism through Poetry
Along with writing poetry, Yosano was a prominent pacifist and a strong advocate for women. She went on to found what was originally an all-girls school, Bunka Gakuin where she assisted many aspiring writers to gain their foothold in the literary world. Her anti-war protests started to gain traction when she wrote Kimi Shinitamou koto nakare during the Russo-Japanese War. The poem was addressed to her brother and was highly controversial.
Yosano Akiko also frequently wrote for Seito, an all-woman literary magazine where she challenges the perceived concepts of motherhood, financial independence, and social responsibility. Her final work, Shin Man’yōshū was a compilation of 26,783 poems by 6,675 contributors, written over a 60-year period.
Yosano abruptly died of a stroke on May 29, 1942. Her literary masterpieces still hold a cultural impact in Japan, and serve as inspirations for women today.