Mikirō Sasaki

Mikirō Sasaki (佐々木 幹郎, Sasaki Mikirō, October 20, 1947) is a Japanese poet and travel author, winner of the 2003 Yomiuri Prize for travel essays. Sasaki won the award for his book Ajia kaidō kikō: umi wa toshi de aru (A Travel Journal of the Asian Seaboard, 2002).[1][2] He has published more than a score of poetry collections and travel books. His Demented flute: selected poems, 1967-1986[3] was published in English in 1988. In 2012, his poetry collection Ashita(Tomorrow) won the 2012 Sakutarō Hagiwara Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of Japanese poetry. He was a Part-time Lecturer in music literature at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Music.[4]

Mikirō Sasaki
Native name
佐々木 幹郎
BornOctober 20, 1947
Tenri, Nara
OccupationPoet and travel author
LanguageJapanese
English
Home townFujiidera, Osaka
Notable worksShisya no Muchi
Notable awards2003 Yomiuri Prize

Biography

Sasaki was born in Tenri in Nara, grew up in Fujiidera in Osaka, Japan[4], attending Fujiidera Elementary School, Osaka Municipal Hannan Junior High School, and Otemae Prefectural Senior High School. He was enrolled at Doshisha University in Kyoto, majoring in philosophy. While there he wrote for the college poetry magazine Moby Dick, and his first collection of poems, Shisya no Muchi: (Whiplash of the Dead, 死者の鞭, was published in 1970 while he was still in college.

In 1976, Sasaki wrote a script for independent film production, Cinema Nesance, about the friendship of the poet Chūya Nakahara and the critic Hideo Kobayashi. It was called Honey Sleep and was directed by Hisaya Iwasa. Since then he has written a number of screenplays, including a 1990 script for NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) television which won a special award at the Golden Prague International Television Festival (Mezinárodni Televizni Festival Zlatá Praha).

In the 1970s, his experiments with a casual, colloquial style coupled with intellectual rigor helped to shape one major direction that Japanese poetry would take in subsequent generations. Indeed, his writing provided nourishment to a number of other writers.

He has travelled widely. In 1984 he was a visiting poet at Oakland University in Michigan. In 1988, he travelled to Nepal, Tibet and Shanghai. His travelogues and poetic style introduced many in Japan to both the wonders of the Himalayas, and the modern, and very different, culture of the largest city in China. He has been active in the field of collaborative poetry, writing renshi under the guidance of Makoto Ōoka.[5]

Professionally, he was the senior editor of the collected works of Chūya Nakahara, which were published 2000-2004, and he lectured at various liberal arts and music colleges and universities through 2007. Sasaki sat for several years on the selection committee for the Chuya Nakahara Prize. He frequently represents Japanese poetry overseas at international poetry festivals and other events. He is also an accomplished photographer.

Awards
  • 1988 the 10th Suntory Foundation "Cultural Award" for his work on Chūya Nakahara
  • 1990 special award for screenplay at Grand Prix Golden Prague
  • 1992 the 22nd Jun Takami Award for his collection of poems entitled The Honey-Hunter, published the previous year
  • 2003 the 55th Yomiuri Literature Prize in travel literature for A Travel Journal of the Asian Seaboard
  • 2012 the 20th Sakutaro Hagiwara Prize for his poetry collection Ashita (Tomorrow)

Notes
  1. 佐々木幹郎 (Sasaki Mikirō) (2002) アジア海道紀行: 海は都市である (A Travel Journal of the Asian Seaboard) Misuzu Shobo, Tokyo, ISBN 4-622-04859-0
  2. 55th Yomiuri Literature Prize in Japanese
  3. Sasaki Mikirō (1988) Demented flute: selected poems, 1967-1986 Katydid Books, W. Bloomfield, Michigan, ISBN 0-942668-15-4
  4. "Mikiro Sasaki Archives". Dedalus Press. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
  5. Look Japan: Volume 48, Issues 553-564. 2002, p4
gollark: I never actually ended up having to reflect 2D lines in 2D lines.
gollark: Well, the way I know to do this in 3D space (with a plane, though) would be to compute the intersection of the line and plane, and then to reflect some arbitrary point on the line in the plane, and make a line through those two points.
gollark: This is EMPIRICAL maths.
gollark: Do you fear Minoteaur, in general?
gollark: It might not be a good line, but it believes in itself.
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