Following in the footsteps of Tomiko Yamakawa [PR for Fukui]

This time, we will introduce Tomiko Yamakawa, who was a poet from Obama City
during the Meiji Period.

She took interest in waka poem since her girlhood and played an active role with
Akiko Yosano as an early female poet of a literary magazine “Myojo”.

She had an arranged marriage that her parents decided at the age of 22
but lost her husband next year.
Afterwards, she entered the English Literature Department of Japan Women’s University and published the collaborated anthology of poems “Koigoromo” with Akiko Yosano and Masako Masuda. However, she suffered tuberculosis and died at the age of 29 in 1909.

”I was born as a girl with long hair
looking at white lilies
bending my head
I think of you”

This poem has been considered that it was a beautiful and pure one about dreamy young girl’s love but in recent years, some people begin to think that it is a very human poem like “I love you deeply”, so they say that this song is variously interpreted.

From the TV program [PR for Fukui], broadcasted on May 4th, 2014.
It is reprinted with permission from Fukui Prefecture. (Subtitled by GEN)