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Poet

Jun Yamamura

Jun Yamamura

Jun Yamamura

(Japan, 1898 - 1975)
Biography
Tokyo-born Jun Yamamura moved to Kobe as a student, where he became friends with Iku Takenaka and Kiyoshi Fukuhara. Together, they founded the poetry magazine Rashin (Mariner’s Compass) in 1924. It was one of the numerous magazines published in Japan during the short period when the urban modernism movement swept through the country. They also set up a publishing company called Kaikō Shijn Kurabu (Seaport Poets Club), from which Jun’s first poetry collection Osoharu (Late Spring) was launched. Yamamura is known for his lyricism and its touches of urban modernism and Neue Sachlichkeit.  He remained near Kobe for the rest of his life and served at one point as a councilman for a nearby city, Nishinomiya.
In VENUS LOOKOUT he questions whether, after so many disasters, 
Has despicable
glory and hatred
been burned
to nothing?
© Yasuhiro Yotsumoto
Poetry

Osoharu (late Spring) Kobe, Kaikō Shijn Kurabu 1926
Suihei to musume (A Sailor and a Girl) Kyoto, Seijyusha 1930
Kūchū Sanpo (Walk in the Air) Tokyo, Kajikisha 1932
Hanabi (Fireworks) Kyoto, Bundōsha 1950
Kimyō na Kokuhaku (A Strange Confession) Tokyo, Kokubunsha 1950
Waku (Frame) Tokyo, Daiichi Bungeisha 1965
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
Lira fonds
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère