Kiyoko Uda

In this Japanese name, the surname is Uda.

Kiyoko Uda 宇多喜代子
Born	(1935-10-15) 15 October 1935 Tokuyama, Yamaguchi, Japan
Occupation	haiku poet
Citizenship	Japanese
Education	Mukogawa Women's University
Years active	1954–present
Notable awards	Modern Haiku Association Award (1982) Dakotsu Prize (2001) Contemporary Haiku Grand Prize (2014) Japan Art Academy Prize (2016) Haiku Shiki Grand Prize (2019)

Kiyoko Uda (Japanese:宇多喜代子; born 15 October 1935) is a Japanese haiku poet, essayist and literary critic. A former president of the Modern Haiku Association, she is considered to be "one of the most significant voices in 20th and 21st-century modern haiku."

Biography

Uda was born on 15 October 1935 in Tokuyama, Yamaguchi and studied at Mukogawa Women's University.

In 1953, after meeting a disciple of Ishii Rogetsu, a village doctor and haiku poet from Akita, she began writing haiku at the age of 19. In 1962, she joined Shirin, a haiku magazine, under the guidance of Toyama Bakuran. In 1970, Uda joined in founding the magazine Sōen (Grass Park) with Katsura Nobuko, and served as its editor-in-chief. From 1976 to 1985, she participated in editing the Gendai Haiku Journal with Tsubouchi Nenten.

In 1989, Uda founded the Osaka Study Group on Haiku History. From 2006 to 2011, she served as the president of the Modern Haiku Association. She is an adviser of the International Haiku Association and a member of the Japan Art Academy.

Career

Examples of Uda's Haiku
(translated by
Richard Gilbert and Itô Yûki)

麦よ死は黄一色と思い込む
むぎよしはきいっしょくとおもいこむ
mugi yo shi wa ki isshoku to omoikomu

wheat –
realizing death as one color
gold

ねむりつつ深井へ落とす蝶の羽
ねむりつつふかいへおとすちょうのはね
nemuri tsutsu fukai e otosu chô no hane
 
slumbering
drops, a butterfly wing
'into a deep well

Uda learned the style of traditional haiku writing through the magazine Shirin, and was nurtured by the free-flowing nature of modern haiku in Sōen. Her haikus are characterized for incorporating tradition, modernity and the avant-garde, and delving into deep agricultural and environmental issues, written in a practical and realistic way rather than in a pure philosophical, aesthetic, or romantic manner.

In her sixth haiku collection Zō (Elephant), which was awarded the 2001 Dakotsu Prize, Uda includes a lament for the novelist Kenji Nakagami, whom she admired for her powerful literary depiction the lives of Japan's burakumin outcaste community, and her memories of the 1995 Hanshin earthquake. She also advocates the recognition of haikus written by women, participating in events and talks, and raising the agenda. As she herself state, she has "lived through the transformation of post-war Japan for more than fifty years and has seen how the role of women in Japanese society and particularly in haiku has evolved." She said,

"Socially, it used to be quite difficult for women to go out in public. Women have always been okusama (women 'hidden in the back'), and so women have remained, in the background, not going out in public for many years... Women rarely gave their full names. For example, I have had very few opportunities to offer someone my full name: Uda Kiyoko... To be honest, wherever one goes (or has gone) there have been few women. The number of haiku poets was small and, moreover, it was generally thought that haiku was unsuitable for women"

Uda's haikus have been translated into English in two significant anthologies: A Long Rainy Season: Haiku & Tanka, edited by Leza Lowitz, Miyuki Aoyama and Akemi Tomioka, and Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women, edited by Makoto Ueda. She also wrote the Shunan University's school anthem with composer Yasunori Mitsuda.

Awards and recognitions

• 1982: Modern Haiku Association Award
• 2001: Dakotsu Prize for Zō (Elephant)
• 2002: Purple Medal of Honor
• 2012: Poetry and Literature Museum Award for Kioku (Memory)
• 2014: Contemporary Haiku Grand Prize
• 2016: Japan Art Academy Prize
• 2019: Haiku Shiki Grand Prize
• 2019: Person of Cultural Merit
• 2021: Mainichi Art Award

Bibliography

Poetry collections

• Rira no ki [りらの木] (The Lilac Tree). Sōen Publishing House, 1980.
• Natsu no hi [夏の日] (Summer Days). Kaifusha, 1984.
• Hantō [半島] (Peninsula). Touseisha, 1988.
• Kadzuki-shū [夏月集] (Summer Moon Collection). Kumano University Press, 1992
• Uda kiyoko hana-shin gendai haiku [宇多喜代子 花神現代俳句] (Kiyoko Uta Hanagami: Modern Haiku). Hanajinja, 1998.
• Zō [象] (Elephant). Kadokawa Shoten, 2000.
• Kioku [記憶] (Memory). Kadokawa Publishing, 2011.
• Uda kiyoko haiku shūsei [宇多喜代子俳句集成] (Kiyoko Uda Haiku Collection). Kadokawa Publishing, 2014.
• Enshin [円心] (Circle Heart). Kadokawa Publishing, 2014.
• Mori e [森へ] (To the Forest). Seijisha, 2018.

Literary criticisms and essays

• Tsubakuro no hibi [つばくろの日々] (Days of the Swallow). Shinya Sōsho-sha, 1994.
• Imēji no joryū haiku - joryū haijin no keifu [イメージの女流俳句-女流俳人の系譜] (The Image of Female Haiku Poets: A Genealogy of Women Haiku Poets). Koeido Shoten, 1994.
• Hitota ba no tegami kara [ひとたばの手紙から] (From a Bundle of Letters). Yushorin, 1995.
• Shinohara Hōsaku [篠原鳳作]. Kagyūsha. 1997.
• Watashi no toshi koto nōto [私の歳事ノート] (My Seasonal Notebook). Fujimi Shobo, 2002
• Watashi no meiku nōto [私の名句ノート] (My Notebook of Famous Haiku). Fujimi Shobo, 2004.
• Satoyama saijiki tanbo no mawari de [里山歳時記田んぼのまわりで] (Satoyama Chronicles: Around the Rice Fields). Nihon Shinbun Kyōkai, 2004.
• Ko kigo to asobu - furui kigo mezurashī kigo no jissaku taiken-ki [古季語と遊ぶ－古い季語・珍しい季語の実作体験記] (Playing with Ancient Seasonal Words: A Practical Account of Creating Poems Using Old and Rare Seasonal Words). Kadokawa Publishing, 2007.
• Shun no saijiki [旬の菜時記] (A Chronicle of Seasonal Vegetables). Asahi Shimbun, 2009.
• Sengo umare no haijin-tachi [戦後生まれの俳人たち] (Post-War Haiku Poets). Mainichi Shimbun, 2012.
• Haiku to aruku [俳句と歩く] (Walking with Haiku). Kadokawa Publishing, 2016.
• Haiku to tomoni waga hanseinoki [俳句とともに　わが半生の記] (A Record of My Life with Haiku). Saku Publishing, 2025.