Suruga-Baika Literary Festival
Greetings From Daichuji
This will be the final occasion of the Suruga-Baika Literary Festival, which has been held annually for the past 10 years. It has been both a long and a short period of time. Including the time spent for planning and initial preparations, it adds up to over 10 years that I have been actively involved in this project. During that span, many people have given me their support and cooperation and have helped me in tangible as well as intangible ways. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of them.
A layman without any special knowledge or training in literature, the fact that I have been able to hold the Literary Festival, supported by poetry lovers, both young and old, men and women, from all over Japan, without incident over these years has been like a dream, and I feel very fortunate. It is due to the existence of poetry that I have been able to meet so many wonderful people, including young children and visitors from overseas, at Daichuji. These meetings have been made even more special by the fact that they could take place beneath the blossoming plum trees, which exhale both beauty and purity. I cannot express the amount of encouragement and inspiration for life that your poems and my encounters with you have given me. I am very grateful to my deceased parents for trying to raise me with an interest in literature. This is because even a modicum of interest in literature turned into the reason I could meet all of you. If viewed from the perspective of the metropolitan center of Tokyo, it looks like just a local regional literary contest. But I started it from the very outset with the desire to reach out to the world via the medium of poetry. In that sense, one might draw some similarities to religion. Most fortunately, joining together with that spirit, a most highly distinguished group of professional poets, literary critics and scholars agreed to volunteer their time to help as members of the selection committee. My feeling is that it is highly likely that some of the poets who have submitted their works to the Suruga-Baika Literary Festival will make history in the near future. In fact, some ripples can be seen already. Though just a drop in the ocean of poetry, I am sure that the waves arising from the Suruga-Baika Literary Festival will reach far and continue well into the future. I think that late eminent literary scholar Suehiro Tanemura and famous poet Ken Kasugai, who both sadly passed away in the middle of the 10 year term of the Literary Festival, shared this feeling when they agreed to take on the burden of serving on the selection committee. Although this marks the end of the Literary Festival at Daichuji, I will continue to meet you in your poems. Also, I will continue to strive to make Daichuji known to the following generations as a temple where the spirit of poetry permanently resides. So, please feel welcome here and stop by again anytime. January , 2008 Koetsu Shimoyama Suruga Baika Literary Festival Office, Daichuji Temple (Translated by Roger Martin) |
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