Long, Long Autumn Nights

In the deepening twilight before World War II, Oguma Hideo cried out against the darkness that was enveloping men’s souls. He died in 1940 at the age of 39, but during his brief lifetime he published some of the most politically powerful poems ever written in Japan. Oguma’s best work displays an empathic vision and breadth of human concern unparalleled in Japanese poetry. He writes from the point of view of Chinese soldiers massacred by the Japanese forces, Ainu hunters trying to preserve their ethnic identity, and Korean grandmothers struggling in vain to preserve Korean culture under Japanese occupation. And, quite unusually for Japanese poets, who have tended to favor the shorter waka and haiku forms, Oguma excels at long poems with an epic-like quality.