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Japanese Poetry and Jazz

April 11, 2009 by William P. Meyers

Point Arena poet Blake More kicked off a night of poetry and music at Gualala Arts Center with her impassioned poem of living in Tokyo and the excitement of listening to jazz music at a club there. Here's a bit:

The chatter and clatter of expectation
Of a new sound within sounds
That were not of my own;
Sounds, sounds that belonged to him.

That set a high yet serene energy for a night filled with talent and surprises.

Blake More and Shirley Muramoto

Shirley Muramoto then played an American jazz standard, Cast Your Fate to the Wind, on koto, accompanied by Karl Young on shakuhachi. The koto is a large stringed instrument; the shakuhachi is a sort of wood flute.

For many audience members the height of the evening was a reading by Mariko Kitakubo. She read her tanka in Japanese with great expression. An English translation was read by fellow tanka poet Linda Galloway. Mariko was able to switch from very serious to very humorous tanka while maintaining the flow of the performance. The performance is something that has to be seen in person, but here is a bit:

Maybe it is better not to know the depths of her wounds
Tranquilly I ask, "How many sugar lumps?"

Mariko Kitakubo with Linda Galloway

Renee Owen read a selection of her Haibun poetry accompanied by Brian Foster on shakuhachi. Shirley Muramoto played two more pieces on the koto, both very different from her jazzy first piece. One was a classical Japanese number based on a twelfth story, in which Shirley displayed her vocal abilities as well as her command of the koto.

Shirley's koto

Brian Foster, Jane Reichhold, Mariko Kitakubo, Renee Owen, Linda Galloway

The final act featured former Manchester resident and Point Arena High School graduate Don McLeod. He did an original, one-time butoh dance performance based on selections from Jane Reichhold's Basho: The Complete Haiku [See also Matsuo Basho].Don is the head of a renowned butoh dance school in Los Angeles and has had a career as an animal impersonator in Hollywood movies. His ability to create a quantum of reality with just his body movements on a stage was very moving.

Don McLeod

This event was part of the Whale and Jazz Festival.