Saishū Onoe

Saishū Onoe (ca. 1936).

Saishū Onoe (尾上柴舟 Onoe Saishū) (1876–1957) was a Japanese tanka poet and calligrapher.^[1]

Saishū wrote a poetry column for the magazine Shinsei ("New Voices"). He also founded the Shazensō Sha ("Plantain Society") in 1905, which stressed clarity, simplicity, and capturing ordinary experiences in poetry.^[2] This was in reaction to the style of the tanka poets associated with Myōjō magazine (such as Yosano Akiko) which emphasized the passionate side of human nature. Members of the Shazensō Sha included the noted Naturalist tanka poets Wakayama Bokusui and Maeda Yūgure (who had been tutored by Onoe Saishū).

References

1. Chieko Irie Mulhern Japanese Women Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook -1994 Page 483 "Onoe Saishu (Onoe Hachiro, 1876-1958) in his article "Tanka met- subo shiron" (The Fall of Tanka — A Personal View, 1911) denounced tanka as a genre in favor of fiction. Akiko tried to promote tanka by writing a few beginners' guides and ..."
2. Seiko Tanabe A Thousand Strands of Black Hair Translated by Meredith McKinney - Page 222 "Onoe had been a disciple of Ochiai Naobumi at Asakasha in the days when tekkan was also in his fold, but had since formed the Ikazuchi Society with Kubo Inokichi and Hattori Motoharu, and undertaken a tanka reform movement. The Ikazuchi poets had a different approach from the Myojo group, ...