POETRY - SEICHI NIIKUNI – ART

L. C. Vinholes[i]

No one can imagine how happy I am for having the opportunity to write about the poet object of this historical exhibition: “The Concrete Poetry of Niikuni Seiichi: Between Poetry and Art”.

I first herd about Niikuni from the poet Yasuo Fujitomi in 1963. Also from him I took notice about the anthology ZERO-ON illustrated by his wife Kiyo and published on September of that year.

I will not write about the life and works of Niikuni since this is better know by the scholars and active poets of the second half of the XX century that had the privilege of to be his contemporary. I will just put on the paper recollections of which I was witness as prove of my respect for the man that overcame the ideas of the surrealism and walked the road of a new vision for poetry: the concrete poem.

Our never to be forgotten poet Niikuni was one of my dear friends among the constellation of poets, some independents and others members of well-know groups, like VOU, Pan Poesie, Almée, Sabi, EN, Shinjinryugaku, Hi, etc., that I was in touch during my fourteen years in Japan.

In October 1963, Niikuni came to my office at the Embassy of Brazil with a copy of his singular collection of poems. We talk about a new language in visual and sound poetry and the relationship between poetry and the peculiarity of different kinds of plastic art and the plural language of musical expressions. I gave to him details about the concrete poetry movement in São Paulo by the brother Haroldo and Augusto de Campos and Décio Pignatari and their roll in the rise of concrete poetry in Europe. I explained to him how and why I organized on April 1960 the Exhibition of Brazilian Concrete Poetry at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, almost two years before I started my work at the Cultural Section of the Brazilian Diplomatic Mission. Also I inform him of my project to organize an international exhibition of concrete poetry including works of Japanese poets. Afterward we met many times until we decided to collaborate with each other for the exhibition held at the Sogetsu Kaikan, on July 1964, with the participation of 28 poets from 5 countries. This cooperation between ourselves result in one the most important event in the relationship between Brazilian and Japanese poets having the direct participation of Niikuni: it was the moment in which taking advantage of “ky vocabularies” in English and French, Niikuni translated into Japanese the poem-book Transient Servitude (1964) by Haroldo de Campos. Together with the anthology Kemuri no Chokusen[ii], by Kitasono Katsu, translated into Portuguese by myself, the two works were read in both languages by Niikuni, the young poet Kyoko Torisawa and myself. As a result of the success and repercussion of this exhibition Niikuni decided to create in 1965 the Geiditsu Kenkyu Kyokai (Association for Studies of Art) and afterwards its periodical magazine ASA.

We must remember that in the beginning of 1964 during his visit to Pierre Garnier, in Amiens, France, Haroldo de Campos seen, for the first time, the anthology ZERO-ON of which he asked for a copy. I sent one to him at the end of June and on July 28 Niikuni received a letter - the first one -, from Haroldo commenting his remarkable poems.

For historical purpose I would like to point that on July 1965, in collaboration with the plastic artist Kenzo Tanaka, founding president of the International Society for Plastic and Audio-Visual Arts (ISPAA), the NUNU Gallery in Osaka held an exhibition of one poem of each participant of the Sogetsu Kaikan´s exhibition, including one poem by Niikuni. The same exhibition was held at the Homma Biditsu-kan[iii]in Sakata (August 1965).

I became so exited with the works of Niikuni that I decided to translate into Portuguese the first nine poems of ZERO-ON: “on behalf of the equilibrium of the flowers”, “the castle of the kids”, “the temple horiuji”, “of the lake”, “woman”, “about the harmony of clouds and sky”, “section of space”, “the steps of the wind” and “the second hand of the clock”.

After the signature of the “Position I de Mouvement International” presented by Pierre Garnier published by Les Lettres nº 32 (April/June 1963) in which Japan, among fourteen countries, was represented by Katsue Kitasono, Toshihiko Shimizu and myself, I sent a letter to Garnier introducing poems of Niikuni. As a result, Garnier included Niikuni´s poem “transmission 9” in Les Lettres nº 33 (October/December 1964). I am specially so proud and happy to be the nakodo[iv]between them. Two years late, the poem “mizumi wo” in Spanish version was published in Uruguay, by Cormoran and Delfin nº 3 (October 1966), being the first publication of Niikuni´s work in the three Americas. Niikuni and Garnier started to work together and produce singular Japanese-Franch concrete poem.

Niikuni was the most direct and effective artisan of a new visual/sound poetry in the second half of the XX century in Japan. His creativity gave new life to the Japanese ideograms and language. We must remember that Niikuni came to the stage of Japanese cultural society in the moment in which Japan started to construct a new historical period and that its relations with Brazil were strongly improved. In the 1960´s we saw the monumental architecture of Kenzo Tange built in Tokyo; the unforgettable Tokyo Olympic (1964) showing to the world not only the performance of its athletes but also the growth of its industry and economy; the distance between Tokyo and Osaka of the old Tokaido was shortened by shinkansen;[v]the start of a new technological bridge between Japan and Brazil with the simultaneous construction of two modern ironworks, Usiminas in Ipatinga, Brazil, and Tobata, in a wide area reclaimed from the sea in Kyushu[vi]; the long trips from Japan to Brazil by ships of the Osaka Shosen Kaisha through the Panama Canal and of the Dutch Line by the way of the Cape Horn transporting agricultural immigrants, were replaced by airlines of both countries bringing young engineers and technicians to the new Brazilian plants; the arrival in Japan of the “bossa nova” the new way to write, play and sing the Brazilian popular music attracted and influenced Japanese musicians and composers; masterpieces of Brazilian theater were translated, published and presented not only in Tokyo but also in many places around Japan, including The hands of Eurídice[vii], by Pedro Block, translated by Jun Shimaji, with more than one thousand presentation to the Japanese public.

The Pilot Plan of the Brazilian Concrete Poetry (1957)was translated into Japanese by Kitasono Katsu, published in VOU nº 95 (July 1964) and in a new translation by Niikuni published in ASA nº 3 (1969). We cannot forget its impact in Europe as well as in Japan.

To those who have interest to know step by step the relationship between Brazil and Japan in the field of concrete poetry I recommend to read my article Exchange, Presence and Influence of Brazilian Concrete Poetry in Japan published in 1975 in the Anais of the IX Coloquium of Luzo-Brazilian Studies, sponsored by the Japanese Society for Luzo-Brazilian Studies (Sophia University-Tokyo).

Many times Niikuni and I talked about music and not about poetry. He always shows that he was well informed about the tendencies of the new music produced in the second half of the XX century. He was also most interested in knowing the reasons why I had abandon the twelve-ton theory of Shoenberg and create my own theory “time-space” for musical composition (1956). He asked many questions about the new ideas for music that I was developing with my Instruction 1961, for any four instruments, published by the magazine Design nº 37 (1962), with text in Japanese and English, performed for the first time on December 31, 1961 by Tomohisa Nakajima New Music Group in Tokyo. Once I commented to Niikuni my interest to develop a poetical language putting aside the visual aspects of writing (poetry to be read and/or to be see) giving principal/total roll to the sounds of words, foregrounding the phonetic and forgiving its semantics. I strongly believed that it was a valid road to approach poetry to music and music to poetry. Our ideas were very close to each other.

Niikuni was a man of dialogue but some times he was very radical to defend his ideas. For example, at the beginning of September 1973 some words and expressions put by Niikuni in the text of the ASA Manifest create a small divergence between us. Niikuni sent to me the Japanese and English version of the Manifest and a postcard asking for an urgent and clear position: “objection” or “no objection”. I gave a different answer and the problem was solved. The Manifest was published in December 1974 by ASA magazine nº 7, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the productive and friendly association of Hiro Kamimura, Yasuo Fujitomi, Yokinobu Kagiya, Shutaro Mukai, Toshihiko Shimizu, myself and Niikuni.

Personally I cannot forget the moments I spent with Niikuni at his house in Ota-ku and the opportunity he gave to me to participate at the remarkable exhibition at Crystal Gallery in Tokyo (May 1967) with a sculpture/poetry Spiral created in partnership with his wife Kiyo.

As time pass and as time is proving, Seiichi Niikuni and ASA are unforgettable part of the history of the Japanese literature in the second half of the XX century.