Kurihara Sadako, Hiroshima poet, essayist, and activist, died on March 6, 2005.
The most fitting tribute to a poet is to read her poems. One of my many favorites is “Hiroshima and the Emperor’s New Clothes,” which she composed for the 26th anniversary of August 6th. Her fire, her acerbic sense of humor, her contempt for hypocrisy (“he says what is isn’t / and what isn’t is,” a reference to the government’s refusal to admit the presence of American nuclear weapons on Japanese soil), her commitment to remembering Hiroshima, and her opposition to the politicians committed to forgetting Hiroshima: all these shine forth in these lines. Her immediate context is Japan in 1981, when the prime minister was Suzuki Zenko, the “chubby” emperor of the poem; but her words apply equally to other countries and other times, including, of course, the U. S. If we can know “Hiroshima” today, it is in large part because she insisted on telling the world “what day August sixth is.”
Kurihara, Sadako
Kurihara, Sadako (March 1913-March 2005 ) was born Doi Sadako in Hiroshima as a second daughter of a farm family. She started writing poems and tanka at the age of thirteen. She graduated from Kobe Women' High School. A Hiroshima A-bomb survivor, she founded Chugoku Bunmei Renmei (Chugoku Culture Association) and published the first issue of "Chugoku Bunka". Since then she has been deeply involved in the antinuclear movement through her literary activities. In 1969 Kurihara founded a citizens' group, "Gensuikin Hiroshima Haha no Kai" ("Hiroshima Mothers' Group against A-Bombs and H-Bombs"), and published an anthology of poetry about Hiroshima, "The River of Flame Running in Japan," which she distributed at the Sixth World Conference against A-Bombs and H-Bombs. The following year she started the journal, "The Rivers in Hiroshima," that continued through five bimonthly issues. In 1962 Kurihara organized a publishing committee and privately published "The Songs of Hiroshima" with parallel versions in English and Japanese. She also edited journal, "Testimony of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (1982), wrote essays (for example, "Embracing the Core Scene of Hiroshima," 1975), and attended numerous conferences, among them the NGO International Symposium in 1977 on "The Reality of the A-Bomb"; the 1982 International Literature Conference in Cologne, Germany etc. She was also involved in the 1983 Conference of Asian Writers in Hiroshima, protesting against nuclear development, poverty, and oppression. Her publications include: "The Black Egg" ("Kuroi tamago," 1946), "The River of Flame Running in Japan" (1960), "The Songs of Hiroshima" (1962), "Watashi wa Hiroshima wo shogen suru" ("I, A Hiroshima Witness", 1967), "Dokyumento Hiroshima 24 nen" ("Documents about Hiroshima Twenty-Four Years Later," 1970), "Hiroshima to iu toki" ("When I Say Hiroshima," 1976), "The Future Begins Here" (1979), "Kakujidai ni ikiru" ("Living in Nuclear Age," essays, 1982), "Genbaku Kashu, Kushu" an anthology of tanka and haiku about the A-Bomb (1991), "Genbaku shishu," an anthology of poems about the A-Bomb (1991), "Hiroshima in Questions," essays (1992), and many others. In 1990 she was awarded the third Tanimoto Kiyoshi Prize.
