Students reflect on love, hope and corruption

2009/1/17

A tanka poem by Natsuki Araya, a third-year industrial high school student in Aomori Prefecture, goes: "Combing my hair, which reeks of iron/ I realize I've indeed become a craftswoman." Kentaro Tamori, also a third-year student at an agricultural high school in Hokkaido, penned this one: "The farmland that was my playground when I was little/ Is now a workplace/ For my father and me."

Around this season every year, I look forward to receiving my copy of "Gendai Gakusei Hyakunin Isshu" (100 contemporary tanka poems by 100 students) from Toyo University. These poems capture the essence of youth--a period that passes all too quickly. The university has been publishing this annual poem collection for 22 years; this year, it received 63,000 entries from around the nation.

The subjects of the selected poems vary, but love and romance are obviously on the minds of many teenage authors.

Yui Miyashita, a second-year senior high school student, wrote: "Looking up in the dictionary/ The meaning of kanji characters for your name/ I bookmark the page in my heart." Kana Sakakibara, also in her second year: "I take super-neat notes in class/ Hoping you'll ask to borrow them."

Sometimes, the heart is ruffled by feelings of loneliness or anxiety. Hiromichi Ando, a first-year senior high school student: "Life or death/ Takes only one kanji to write/ Under the harvest moon/ I stand alone in a field of pampas grass."

Miku Kamada, a third-year senior high school student: "I don't know why/ But I get the feeling/ That I shouldn't find my bluebird of happiness."

But the teens keep trying. Kanon Suzuki, a third-year junior high school student, wrote: "Sprinting 100 meters at full speed/ Pares away everything I don't need." Mana Murasaki, a first-year senior high school student: "I'm not as close to my limits as I think/ So why not keep running until I hit them." Murasaki is a girl, but she wrote boku, the first-person singular that is typically used by boys. The effect is surprisingly refreshing.

There are things these young people want to say to adults, in fact telling them off. For Keisuke Goda, a third-year senior high school student, it's this: "People knew all too well/ They were selling contaminated rice/ But which was more contaminated/ The rice or their hearts?"
And Kaori Matsumura, a first-year senior high school student, had this message for politicians: "Let's have an Obama sensation in Japan, too/ Everyone is waiting for a prime minister they can trust."

Yes, we can. Everyone, including these future voters, is waiting for hope to light up society.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 16(IHT/Asahi: January 17,2009)