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At Midnight in the Kitchen I Just Wanted to Talk to You
Book by Tanikawa, Shuntario
63 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1975
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About the author
Shuntarō Tanikawa
444 books35 followersShuntarō Tanikawa was a Japanese poet and translator. He was considered to be one of the most widely read and highly regarded Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad. The English translation of his poetry volume Floating the River in Melancholy, translated by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura and illustrated by Yoko Sano, won the American Book Award in 1989.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 18, 2015
Every time I re-read this, I see and feel something new. I wish I could watch Tanikawa anonymously from across a room. I wish I could overhear him tell a joke. He strikes me as someone with a gift for humor and the ridiculous. Some of my favorite lines are:
From #3
"I'm drinking coffee here in the kitchen.
Goodness is out of my line
and so I try, at least, to develop good penmanship.
From "Written at 14 E.28th Street.."
"It'd be great
if all I had to do was save my own soul;
but since other souls are mixed up with mine
I can't even say which soul is mine."
And the poem "Goldfish" is one of my favorites.
As are #7 and "My Favorite Things".
From #3
"I'm drinking coffee here in the kitchen.
Goodness is out of my line
and so I try, at least, to develop good penmanship.
From "Written at 14 E.28th Street.."
"It'd be great
if all I had to do was save my own soul;
but since other souls are mixed up with mine
I can't even say which soul is mine."
And the poem "Goldfish" is one of my favorites.
As are #7 and "My Favorite Things".
November 19, 2025
What struck me most in this poetry collection was the opening piece, “The Lawn.”
I feel that this poem has something in common with Shuntarō Tanikawa’s first collection, Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude.
In place of a preface to Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude, Tatsuji Miyoshi wrote the poem From a Distant Land, ending with the lines:
“Ah, this young man / as one long awaited in the midst of winter / suddenly arrived from a faraway land.”
And in his commentary for the Kadokawa Bunko edition of The Poems of Shuntarō Tanikawa, the poet Nobuo Ōoka writes that the sentiment in Tanikawa’s poetry is akin to “the feeling that one might, perhaps, be an orphan from some other celestial body, abandoned on this small planet called Earth.”
In the collection In the Middle of the Night I Wanted to Talk to You in the Kitchen, the poet seems to have been suddenly abandoned—somewhere far out in the universe—on a patch of lawn (or perhaps in a kitchen at midnight?), and yet speaks of human happiness.
The poet’s sensibility is untouched by any narrow framework such as being “Japanese.” That is precisely why the words in this collection feel so fresh and reach deep into the hearts of so many readers.
Sadly, Tanikawa passed away this year. My heartfelt condolences.
I feel that this poem has something in common with Shuntarō Tanikawa’s first collection, Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude.
In place of a preface to Two Billion Light-Years of Solitude, Tatsuji Miyoshi wrote the poem From a Distant Land, ending with the lines:
“Ah, this young man / as one long awaited in the midst of winter / suddenly arrived from a faraway land.”
And in his commentary for the Kadokawa Bunko edition of The Poems of Shuntarō Tanikawa, the poet Nobuo Ōoka writes that the sentiment in Tanikawa’s poetry is akin to “the feeling that one might, perhaps, be an orphan from some other celestial body, abandoned on this small planet called Earth.”
In the collection In the Middle of the Night I Wanted to Talk to You in the Kitchen, the poet seems to have been suddenly abandoned—somewhere far out in the universe—on a patch of lawn (or perhaps in a kitchen at midnight?), and yet speaks of human happiness.
The poet’s sensibility is untouched by any narrow framework such as being “Japanese.” That is precisely why the words in this collection feel so fresh and reach deep into the hearts of so many readers.
Sadly, Tanikawa passed away this year. My heartfelt condolences.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews