It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Poetry Friday post, but then I’ve been away for awhile from my home digs in Canada. Right now I’m in Japan for a couple of months – however, being here hasn’t kept me away from good books for children in English as there are plenty of such books to be had here. One great short little book I was introduced to by mothers in a reading group for my daughter’s elementary school (see my Postcard for Japan post on this group) was this book A Friend by Japanese poet, Tanikawa Shuntaro (Trans. by Arthur Binard, illus. by Wada Makoto, published by Tamagawa University Press, 2004.) The original edition (Tomodachi) in Japanese contains pithy sayings by Tanikawa about the nature of friendship like “A friend is someone you think about even when you’re not together” or “Even if you speak different languages, a friend is a friend.” The simple and plain illustrations of Wada Makoto supplement the statements nicely. At the end of the book, the statements philosophically expand their horizons. For example, by showing a photograph of a disabled child in a wheelchair, the book asks “A friend might be someone you haven’t yet met. How can you lend a hand to this friend?” or showing a child in a tent-city squatting in the sand, the book asks “Is there anything you can do to help a friend faraway?” The book ends with a poem by Tanikawa on the nature of friendship and on how it essentially removes one’s notion of self-centeredness to create an awareness of the other in a way that is truly compassionate. I enjoyed reading this book aloud to both my children — teenager and child alike — and found them nodding in agreement to many of the statements. The woman who lent the bookto me told me she read the Japanese version to her child when she was in elementary school, and then bought the English version for her when she was in junior high school and just beginning to learn English. Both books provide thoughtful meditations on the nature of friendship that are not always so obvious but true nontheless – it was certainly not surprising to me that it was penned by one of Japan’s more well known contemporary poets, Tanikawa Shuntaro.
Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe.