SOURCE: "On Postwar Japanese Poetry," in The Poetry of Postwar Japan, edited by Kijima Hajime, University of Iowa Press, 1975, pp. xi-xxvi.

In the following excerpt, Kijima presents an overview of trends in Japanese poetry written after World War II.

Postwar Japanese poetry emerged from the ashes. During the wartime, the poets who were not influenced by the ultra-nationalistic military activities were rare, and almost all poets were mobilized to write war-encouraging poems. Spontaneously, rather than by being forced, they participated in this kind of literary effort. And of course, no literary works of endurance could come of such activities. As a result, when Japan was defeated by the Allied Forces in 1945, there was no base upon which the new poets could stand—only the so-called "Given Democracy."

Ashes, vacuum, and "Given Democracy." But nothing creative can be expected from these.

The writers who had been ardent militarists yesterday...