Atomic Bomb Literature

   After reading John Treat's piece in the article "American's Hiroshima, Hiroshima's America" I became more intrigued with Atomic Bomb literature, as well as Japanese poets during and post World War II. In class we discussed American censorship on Japanese Literature during the war, we also discussed the fact that Hibakushas rarely mentioned America in their works. In Treat's article, he discusses the emotions behind writers as a result of the Atomic Bombs. For instance, the Japanese poet Hara Tamiki wondered, "whether the meaning of the atomic bomb could be grasped by anyone whose own skin had not been seared by it" (4). Also, the Japanese writer Takenishi Hiroko asked, "What words can we now use, and to what ends? Even: what are words?" (5) It seems that there was a direct writer's block as a result of the A-Bombs, not because there wasn't anything to say, but more so because they didn't know how to say it; additionally, that these writers could only say so much under the censorship laws. Treat explains this idea in a different way, "It is as if the victims were so over powered by the bomb's effects that its origins are rendered hopelessly abstract and even ultimately pointless" (13). In this way, it's like the atomic bombs had somehow taken on their own life force that disregarded the physical act of America dropping them. Similarly, novelist Oda Makoto makes a notable reason for why America is not present in Hibakusha literature, "America may be absent from the writings of hibakusha, because the assailants in a nuclear war are impossibly remote from the perceptive of ground zero" (17).
   Returning back to the notion that America is rarely mentioned in Hibakusha Literature, I found Treat's take on this really interesting. Treat offers the idea that America is "disappointed or frustrated" when the works of the Japanese do not "accuse" (11). He furthers this point, "Our "American" desire to experience the brunt of their absent hate in our insistence on seeing them as less damaged than they are; we seek their recuperation so as to excuse ourselves." (20) Here, Treat is saying that we have an expectation for grudges by the Japanese, and therefore a twisted "right" to be included in their Literature. Treat then writes, "An atomic-bomb literature that details a hate for things American would make things "equal" between us; that has not happened." (21) With this, we see that Atomic Bomb Literature does not 'see an eye for an eye' which denies the "familiar binaries" (21) of victim hating the victimizer. As a result, this perplexes America, yet simultaneously still empowers us with domination.
   Lastly, I wanted to add a little information from the research I found about Japanese poets after WWII. In 1945 a new group of poets called "Arechi", which translates to "Wasteland", began producing a monthly magazine, as well as yearly anthologies of their works. Ironically, this group took their name from T.S. Elliot's well-known poem "Wasteland", and they had mixed influences ranging from T.S. Elliot and W.H. Auden to existentialists like Camus and Sartre. A prominent Japanses poet who played a big part in forming this group is a man named Tamura Ryuichi. Ryuichi rejected normal Modernist ideas of distance and art, and instead focused on direct communication through everyday speech. Ryuichi also had served in the Japanese navy so he felt he had a "responsibility of poets to help create a new approach to poetry for a new era." (http://voiceseducation.org/content/ryuichi-tamura-japanese)

Here is one of Tamura Ryuichi's poems to see his poetic style:

Four Thousand Days and Nights

In order for a single poem to come into existence,
you and I have to kill,
have to kill many things,
many lovable things, kill by shooting, kill by assassination,
kill by poisoning.

Look !

Out of the sky of four thousand days and nights,
just because we wanted the trembling tongue of one small bird,
four thousand nights of silence and four thousand days of counter light
you and I killed by shooting.

Listen!

Out of all the cities of falling rain, smelting furnaces,
midsummer harbors, and coal mines,
just because we needed the tears of a single hungry child
four thousand clays of love and four thousand nights of compassion
you and I killed by assassination.

Remember!

Just because we wanted the fear of one vagrant dog
who could see the things you and I couldn't see with our eyes
and could hear the things you and I couldn't hear with our ears,
four thousand nights of imagination and four thousand days of chilling recollection
you and I killed by poison.

In order for a single poem to come
you and I have to kill beloved things.
This is the only way to bring back the dead to life.
You and I have to follow that way.