Farewell to Kazuko Shiraishi
On June 15, the sad news came that our old friend Kazuko Shiraishi, the acclaimed jazz poet celebrated in her youth as the Queen of Shinjuku, passed away that morning in Tokyo. “She was 93,” wrote old Iowan buddy Burton Blume, who had resettled and raised a family in Tokyo a generation ago.
Kazuko was a BFF of our own iconic poet Virgie Moreno, who had brought her here to perform her poetry for an international festival in 1986, as well as on several other occasions. When I shared the news of her passing on FB, I was surprised that a good number of Filipino friends still recalled her with much fondness.
Tina Cuyugan wrote: “I remember vividly her reciting her poem on the mountain goat below the ramparts of Intramuros. Her flowing hair. She wore white. She ‘read’ from a scroll several meters long. Krip, you read out the English translation after each stanza, did you not? And Anton Juan appeared on the ramparts wearing a massive goat mask.”
Memories came flooding back. Yes, I replied. It was on a large stage set up at the fringe of Rizal Park. Tina added that the festival had been a moveable feast, that there were readings at different locations, including the UP Film Center. And of course at Virgie’s Cafe Orfeo. Butch Perez also reminded us that she read at the Baguio Arts Fest, which Chi Balmaceda Gutierrez still recalls. Agnes Arellano piped in: “I witnessed her reading once at Cafe by the Ruins. Electric.”
Noel Añonuevo asked Adelaida Lim: “Was she the one you asked me to squire around the Baguio market? She had wild hair, she wore a frayed lamé baseball jacket and was so kalat she misplaced her wallet.” Adelaida: “The very one. During another visit to Baguio, she had those hot packs in her pockets and all over her body for arthritis. More sabog than kalat.”
Jing Panganiban had another year in mind: “Rest in peace, Kazuko! I have fond memories of her at the literary conference we organized in the early 2000s. We hosted her and Ko Un, the South Korean poet. And the Indonesian poet Sitor Situmorang.”
From the US, poet Angela Narciso Torres chimed in: “Sad news indeed. I met her in Manila at a poetry conference held in Ateneo in 2002. We spoke briefly when I bought her book and asked her to sign it for me. She was quite a presence. I will never forget her.”
Jing: “That was the international conference. We billeted the poets at EDSA Shangri-La. Mookie (Katigbak) and I were part of the secretariat, along with Carlomar Arcangel Daoana.”
Susan Lara helped remind us that it was PLAC (Philippine Literary Arts Council) that spearheaded it, in collaboration with CWF (Creative Writing Council) and UMPIL (Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas). Now how could I have forgotten all that, when it was Susan, Jimmy Abad and I who followed up on our ambitious project for generous sponsorship from the Japan Foundation? It allowed us to convene a dozen poets from the Asia-Pacific for several days of readings and discussions on the parallel aspects of indigenous and contemporary poetry.
Danton Remoto remembered something else, that he and Angela had been at the buffet line together at one of the functions. Fellow poet Karma Thutob Jungne, formerly John Labella, offered another detail: “At her visit to Ateneo, she read a poem on a long scroll that piled at her feet as the reading progressed. It was unforgettable. Tina agreed: “The scroll seems to have been her trademark.”
In turn, artist Arnel Agawin recalled that he was with Santi Bose when we brought her to Penguin for a reading. “We were awe-struck, though we didn’t really know her at that time. We retreated to Butch’s pad after the event. The best I remember was her young ‘Man-wife’ who brushed her hair at her signal.”
That was Nobu, her young devoted partner, who sometimes backed her reading with a didgeredoo. We walked around their area in Tokyo one night having a good smoke. In 1979 Kazuko and I had bonded at a poetry conference in the East-West Center in Honolulu for several weeks. She got me invited to the Chikyu Poetry Fest, where as a side treat, she asked lady friends to hear a few of us read after dinner at her place. And we came away with jarfuls of yen. In the mid-’90s, on a holiday in Tokyo with my budding family, she hosted us for sakura parties with her friends. Jorge Arago, Butch Perez and Ricky de Ungria had also visited her in Tokyo.
Burt Blume has earlier memories, since he first met her at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (IWP) in 1973.
“Kazuko Shiraishi was one of the most vibrant and flamboyant poets I have ever known. (She) was one of the most colorful members of the group. She shared an apartment with Virgie Moreno. They were inseparable—the empress and the impresario.
“To attend one of Kazuko’s poetry readings was a fantastic experience: improvisational jazz, light show, costume changes, and poems written on long scrolls which Kazuko unrolled with a flourish. She asked me to read English translations of her poems, like her signature piece, ‘My Tokyo.’ In the years that followed, she was invited to poetry festivals around the world, where her beauty and theatrical reading style electrified the gatherings.
“She recited her verse with a slashing rhythm and tones escalating to a crescendo. She called it ‘my Samurai Movie Voice.’
“She was a prolific writer who is often associated with the Beat poetry movement. In addition to her Japanese books, which few of us could read, a steady stream of English translations were published. Kenneth Rexroth wrote the intro to her New Directions collection, Seasons of Sacred Lust (which is still in print). Donald Keene called her ‘the Allen Ginsberg of Japan.’
“When I moved to Japan in 1979, Kazuko and Nobuhiko, her life partner, came to my hotel and led me on a costumed stroll through Omote-Sando and Harajuku. She brought me into her world, presided as ‘Nakodo’ (ceremonial matchmaker) at my wedding, and remained one of my dearest friends for 50 years.
“There will only be a simple family funeral on the 19th before her cremation. Her daughter, Yuko, is flying over from England.”
So many fine memories we all have of Kazuko Shiraishi. Farewell, dearest treasure of a friend.