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On Knowing Oneself Too Well
At the turn of the twentieth-century, Ishikawa Takuboku took Japan's ancient, highly formal poetic tradition and turned it to the purposes of an impassioned sensibility in a rapidly modernizing world. Beginning with poems rich in childhood sorrow and wonder, he progressed in his short life to a poetry of searing objectivity and miraculous self-knowing. Before dying of tuberculosis, Takuboku achieved in his poems a kind of Buddhist awakening, observing by their means the emptiness of self in a riveting and heartbreaking world. On Knowing Oneself Too Well offers, in Tamae K. Prindle's lucid translations, the most comprehensive selection available in English of this vital modern poet. "Ishikawa died at twenty-six, lived long enough to change his name to woodpecker, died young, lived long enough to take an old form, tanka, and make it new, died young, lived long enough to read foreign books and taste foreign wine, died young but had chance to sing himself a long song, Whitman's eyes turned humbly, fiercely outward, careful what he sees, died young, lived long enough to build a body of poems that moves me the way weather does, birds and shabby autumn trees and all the other sorts of things that die young and make a spectacle of themselves, funny reminders, revelations, quiet ecstasies. Died young and left poems of a wry beauty, given to us here in quiet, affectionate English translation." -Robert Kelly "The poet as woodpecker Ishikawa Takuboku's clear pecked rhythms & images are a perfect delight. Are they large rain drops sparingly tapping the drum-taut paper of a shoji-screen or the poet's tensed fingers rapping on his tablet? The reader sits & listens & looks and the world grows quiet except for that nano-perception that now begins to fill the world. The small daily pain or pleasure, exquisitely brought over into the simplest of and yet, all the world is thus said." -Pierre Joris
142 pages, Paperback
First published January 14, 2010
5 people are currently reading
227 people want to read
About the author
Takuboku Ishikawa
138 books60 followersTakuboku Ishikawa (石川 啄木 February 20, 1886 – April 13, 1912) was a Japanese poet. He died of tuberculosis. Well-known as both a tanka and "modern-style" (新体詩 shintaishi?) or "free-style" (自由詩 jiyūshi?) poet, he began as a member of the Myōjō group of naturalist poets but later joined the "socialistic" group of Japanese poets and renounced naturalism.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 12, 2018
4.5/5
I wish to experience the sort of love
That compels the dipping of my burning face
In softly piled snow.
----
Death:
It seems the same as taking some medicine—
Since my heart aches so.
----
Whoever made me bow
Even once—
I pray they all may die.
----
I have a kind of cliff in my head
From which the soil keeps eroding
Day after day.
----
Smelling
The paper of a new foreign book,
I longed suddenly for some money.
----
Though the place is unfamiliar except for the name,
The cheap lodging fee
Makes me feel at home.
The lodging place
Where I stayed to cry heartily—
The lukewarmness of their tea.
---
When I asked if she wanted to die,
The woman showed me
A scar on her throat.
---
Like a scratch on a white lampshade,
It is impossible to erase
The memory of exile.
---
The fading shadow on the shōji-screen—
As I see it,
My heart gradually grows dark.
---
The sorrow
Of not having a strong pang
When my child’s body grows colder.
---
For no particular reason
I feel a little cheerful this morning—
I cut my fingernails.
---
I fear my recent reckless attitude
Of surrendering all my hopes
To the course of my fate.
---
Wishing to make flowers blossom overnight,
I warmed the cherry plant over the fire,
All in vain.
---
By the doctor’s words,
“Don’t you want to live, then?”
I was hushed.
---
My friends and my wife seem to feel sad
Since I never cease talking about revolutions
Though in sickbed.
---
I took a pen
Just to write:
“The morning with some fresh flowers in my vase.”
I wish to experience the sort of love
That compels the dipping of my burning face
In softly piled snow.
----
Death:
It seems the same as taking some medicine—
Since my heart aches so.
----
Whoever made me bow
Even once—
I pray they all may die.
----
I have a kind of cliff in my head
From which the soil keeps eroding
Day after day.
----
Smelling
The paper of a new foreign book,
I longed suddenly for some money.
----
Though the place is unfamiliar except for the name,
The cheap lodging fee
Makes me feel at home.
The lodging place
Where I stayed to cry heartily—
The lukewarmness of their tea.
---
When I asked if she wanted to die,
The woman showed me
A scar on her throat.
---
Like a scratch on a white lampshade,
It is impossible to erase
The memory of exile.
---
The fading shadow on the shōji-screen—
As I see it,
My heart gradually grows dark.
---
The sorrow
Of not having a strong pang
When my child’s body grows colder.
---
For no particular reason
I feel a little cheerful this morning—
I cut my fingernails.
---
I fear my recent reckless attitude
Of surrendering all my hopes
To the course of my fate.
---
Wishing to make flowers blossom overnight,
I warmed the cherry plant over the fire,
All in vain.
---
By the doctor’s words,
“Don’t you want to live, then?”
I was hushed.
---
My friends and my wife seem to feel sad
Since I never cease talking about revolutions
Though in sickbed.
---
I took a pen
Just to write:
“The morning with some fresh flowers in my vase.”
July 10, 2025
beautiful and sombre (definitely picked this up for the title)
October 21, 2020
“Home
This morning when I opened my eyes
I longed for a place to call my home.
I thought much about it while washing my face.
Returning home after a day’s work,
As I sipped some tea and smoked a cigarette after supper,
The purple smoke reminded me of my dear past.
I sadly thought about “home”—
Sadly and in desolation.”
This morning when I opened my eyes
I longed for a place to call my home.
I thought much about it while washing my face.
Returning home after a day’s work,
As I sipped some tea and smoked a cigarette after supper,
The purple smoke reminded me of my dear past.
I sadly thought about “home”—
Sadly and in desolation.”
December 31, 2025
“I stare at the white lampshade and, quietly, but earnestly, go on daydreaming privately.”
Lovely little collection from a tragically short lived poet. I loved Smoke (1) and (2), Love Letter to Myself, Home and To My Sister. The fragmentary and meandering way he writes his longer poems like love letter and smoke (1 & 2), like a spurt of various thoughts over time on a specific theme or time was wonderful, especially in smoke. Reflecting on his youth as ephemeral smoke fading away while struggling till his untimely death at 26 to make a living, filled with never met desires and dreams, his thoughts, at times foreign and others too close to home, hit hard. I don’t have much more to say without being repetitive. I’ll share quotes now.
Quotes (as sentences since I’m reading them from my iPad while typing this Ehhehe):
“I resent flattery—
It is pitiful to know oneself
Too well”
“I wish to experience the sort of love/That compels the dipping of my burning face/In softly piled snow”
“The ennui/After pretending to be somebody— What shall I compare it to?”
“The ever-laughing man— when he dies/The world will be a little more monotonous”
“No matter how hard I work/ My life remains poor— I stare at my hands in wonder”
“I will sleep the whole day…That has been my wish for three years”
“My artless desire/Like the burning wick of an oil lamp/Illuminates you forever”
“The purple smoke reminded me of my dear past…But how sad, I have parted from my younger days…and became weary of my everyday urban life”
Lovely little collection from a tragically short lived poet. I loved Smoke (1) and (2), Love Letter to Myself, Home and To My Sister. The fragmentary and meandering way he writes his longer poems like love letter and smoke (1 & 2), like a spurt of various thoughts over time on a specific theme or time was wonderful, especially in smoke. Reflecting on his youth as ephemeral smoke fading away while struggling till his untimely death at 26 to make a living, filled with never met desires and dreams, his thoughts, at times foreign and others too close to home, hit hard. I don’t have much more to say without being repetitive. I’ll share quotes now.
Quotes (as sentences since I’m reading them from my iPad while typing this Ehhehe):
“I resent flattery—
It is pitiful to know oneself
Too well”
“I wish to experience the sort of love/That compels the dipping of my burning face/In softly piled snow”
“The ennui/After pretending to be somebody— What shall I compare it to?”
“The ever-laughing man— when he dies/The world will be a little more monotonous”
“No matter how hard I work/ My life remains poor— I stare at my hands in wonder”
“I will sleep the whole day…That has been my wish for three years”
“My artless desire/Like the burning wick of an oil lamp/Illuminates you forever”
“The purple smoke reminded me of my dear past…But how sad, I have parted from my younger days…and became weary of my everyday urban life”
July 3, 2021
This collection of poetry took me some time to finish as its mood is genuinely melancholic and weighed on me at times. It is not filled with the kind of romantic melancholy of “mono no aware” common to much Japanese poetry, but the genuine misery and hopelessness of a man in the grips of life-long depression. There are many moments of beauty in these poems, and the longer poems of many short linked verses (like “a love song to myself” and “unforgettable people” 1 and 2) have a wonderful, serene and plaintive rhythm to them that I enjoyed. I also enjoyed the general conformity to the spirit of classic Japanese poetic forms like the Wakka/Tanka, Haiku and linked verses of Renga, but with a welcome touch of innovation to these forms as well as a shift to a very contemporary and “modern” subject matter much closer to Japanese life today. However, there is a recurring tendency for these poems to slip very easily into a grim self-pity which weighs heavily on the reader. Insofar as these poems work to convey what must’ve been the torment of a sheer internal drudgery and deep depression they are very successful - but that is not the kind of poetry I suspect many readers would seek out. I felt like an unpaid therapist to Takuboku on many occasions as his self-pity and self-loathing poured out over lines and pages. If you are not shy about engaging with the lows of the human experience then there is much treasure to be found in these pages, but it requires resilience and patience to dig it up.
April 13, 2014
Some arresting lines and images.
January 9, 2017
This is the greatest collection of poetry by any poet of any nationality I have ever read. No word is wasted, and its power is breathtaking.
September 28, 2017
When I breathe,
I hear a sound rattling in my chest—
A sound more merciless than a biting winter wind.
___
Ishikawa Takuboku died at an age of 26 from pulmonary tuberculosis. Sad Toys, quoted above, is one of the poems he wrote on his deathbed - dying penniless, hoping to buy more books to read. I am not sure how much he had read, but he sure has written more poems than most poets even dream of. It was not an unusual year if he penned a 1000 poems in it. In the most productive year, he also wrote 9 novels alongside the poems. Most nights he wrote at least 50 poems.
On Knowing Oneself Too Well collects his most well-known poems. What stands out is the immediacy he brings to all his poems. Based on what little Japanese poetry I have read - this seems to be a national trait. When Takuboku (Woodpecker) uses images, they are of scenes happening in the present - adding to the sense of immediacy. Reading him one feels a brutal commitment to being honest in his artworks.
Collected here are both Tankas and free-style poems. He preferred a 3-line tanka over the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 5-line structure, and employs it to great effect I guess - the form has not been preserved in the translations.
Go read.
I hear a sound rattling in my chest—
A sound more merciless than a biting winter wind.
___
Ishikawa Takuboku died at an age of 26 from pulmonary tuberculosis. Sad Toys, quoted above, is one of the poems he wrote on his deathbed - dying penniless, hoping to buy more books to read. I am not sure how much he had read, but he sure has written more poems than most poets even dream of. It was not an unusual year if he penned a 1000 poems in it. In the most productive year, he also wrote 9 novels alongside the poems. Most nights he wrote at least 50 poems.
On Knowing Oneself Too Well collects his most well-known poems. What stands out is the immediacy he brings to all his poems. Based on what little Japanese poetry I have read - this seems to be a national trait. When Takuboku (Woodpecker) uses images, they are of scenes happening in the present - adding to the sense of immediacy. Reading him one feels a brutal commitment to being honest in his artworks.
Collected here are both Tankas and free-style poems. He preferred a 3-line tanka over the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 5-line structure, and employs it to great effect I guess - the form has not been preserved in the translations.
Go read.
February 25, 2023
Note for myself:
Many part of the poem resonated with my current feeling. But personally, I already liked Takuboku's work since I read Romaji Diary & Sad Toys.
Spoiler
I said, this book is probably sadder.
Many part of the poem resonated with my current feeling. But personally, I already liked Takuboku's work since I read Romaji Diary & Sad Toys.
Spoiler
I said, this book is probably sadder.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 25, 2021
Poems to carry in your heart, and think about when bored or maybe when talking to a friend.
July 5, 2023
I fear my recent reckless attitude
Of surrendering all my hopes
To the course of my fate.
Of surrendering all my hopes
To the course of my fate.
January 31, 2025
"I resent flattery—
It is pitiful
To know oneself too well."
It is pitiful
To know oneself too well."
June 21, 2016
A good little book. Some odd poems occasionally, but all good. Give it a read.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews