Tawara Machi and *Sarada Kinenbi* — The Popularization of Tanka and the Explosion of Colloquial Tanka

Tawara Machi and the Sarada Kinenbi Phenomenon

Tawara Machi (1962-) is a representative modern Japanese tanka poet. In May 1987, at 25, she published her first tanka collection Sarada Kinenbi (Salad Anniversary). Within that year, it became an exceptional bestseller of 2.8 million copies, achieving the greatest commercial success in tanka history.

The Sarada Kinenbi phenomenon went beyond a mere hit collection:

• The popularization that brought tanka back to Japanese people
• The generalization of colloquial tanka
• Expansion of the tanka population in the younger generations (10s-30s)
• A symbol of bubble-era Japanese culture — a poetry of a bright, positive consumer society

The opening of a new era of modern tanka.

Life

Origins and University Years (1962-1985)

• December 31, 1962, born in Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture
• Father worked at a chemical maker, mother a homemaker; a transfer family, they moved through Fukui, Osaka, Kanagawa
• 1981, entered Waseda University’s First Faculty of Letters (Japanese literature)
• 1985, graduated Waseda, took up a post as Japanese teacher at Hashimoto High School in Kanagawa

Encounter with Tanka

At Waseda, she joined the tanka research society of Professor Sasaki Yukitsuna (1938-). Sasaki, a poet and tanka scholar, later became Tawara’s teacher. She began composing tanka in her university years.

Won the Tanka Research Newcomer Prize (1986)

In 1986 (age 24), she won the Tanka Research Newcomer Prize with “Hachigatsu no Asa” (Morning of August). Debut work:

“Samui ne / to hanashi kakereba / samui ne / to kotaeru hito no / iru atatakasa”

When you say “It’s cold,” there is a person who answers “It’s cold” — that warmth. The bud of Tawara’s style, bringing colloquial, everyday, close-at-hand emotion into tanka.

Publication of Sarada Kinenbi (1987)

On May 8, 1987, Kawade Shobō Shinsha published the tanka collection Sarada Kinenbi. It contains 434 poems. The title poem:

“Kono aji ga / ii ne to kimi ga / itta kara / shichigatsu muika wa / sarada kinenbi”

At publication the publisher expected about 5,000 copies, but after publication it became a topic by word of mouth almost immediately and passed 1,000,000 copies within months. It reached 2,800,000 copies that same year — an unprecedented bestseller.

Later Activity (1988-)

• 1988, resigned as high school teacher, became a professional poet
• August 1989, published the poetry collection Toretate no Tanka
• 1991, published her second collection Kaze no Tenohira
• 1997, gave birth to a son; afterward, a life of childcare and tanka
• 2004, fourth collection Pū-san no Hana — works of the childcare period
• 2011, moved to Ishigaki Island in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake (for radiation concerns)
• 2016, moved to Miyazaki City, Miyazaki Prefecture
• Still active as a poet today, also busy on SNS

Sarada Kinenbi — A Collection of Representative Poems

Let us look at the central works of Sarada Kinenbi. What is distinctive is the easy comprehensibility of the tanka, the familiarity through colloquial, and the theme of love.

Representative Poem 1: The Title Poem

“Kono aji ga / ii ne to kimi ga / itta kara / shichigatsu muika wa / sarada kinenbi”

• kono aji ga ii ne — this tastes good (=praising a dish)
• to kimi ga itta kara — because you said so
• shichigatsu muika wa sarada kinenbi — July 6 is Salad Anniversary

Because a lover said “This tastes good,” she named that day (=July 6) “Salad Anniversary.” She turns the offhand words of an everyday moment into a two-person anniversary. She sings the sweet everyday of love in completely plain colloquial.

This poem contains all of:

• Perfect colloquial (“kono aji ga ii ne” is just what one says in everyday conversation)
• A concrete date (the specificity of “July 6”)
• The sweetness of love (the sweet love scene of the present)
• The culture of making anniversaries (modern consumer / couple culture)

A symbolic poem of the bubble-era Japanese love culture.

Representative Poem 2: The Temperature Gap of Man and Woman

“Aijin de ii no to utau / kashu ga ite / kotoba wa boku wo / koete iku natsu”

• aijin de ii no — “being your mistress is fine” (=not the formal wife)
• to utau kashu — a singer who sings this (=then-fashionable pop song)
• kotoba wa boku wo koete iku natsu — a summer in which the words go past me

A summer in which the light love words of a fashionable song are not digestible for the speaker “boku.” Condensing into tanka the gap between modern views of love and his own feelings. A representative of Tawara’s contemporary sense.

Representative Poem 3: A Night at the Sea

“Machi-chan / to yobarete tateba / nani ka shira / shiawase ni koto / okoru ga gotoshi”

• Being called “Machi-chan” and standing (my own name is called and I stand up)
• nani ka shira — as if somehow
• shiawase ni koto okoru ga gotoshi — something happy is going to happen

The instant when her own name “Machi-chan” is called, and a premonition of happiness. She brings into tanka the joy of a woman being called by her own name. A direct expression of Tawara’s feminine identity.

Representative Poem 4: The Foreboding of Parting

“‘Mata denwa suru yo’ to iu / kimi no koe ga / suki / ichido mo / denwa wa kakatte konai”

• I love the voice of you saying “I’ll call you again”
• Not even once has the phone rung

The sweetness of the beginning of love and the reality that in fact the phone doesn’t ring — the gap. She engraves in one poem the gap between words and action in modern love. A representative of Tawara’s intellectual humor.

Representative Poem 5: A High-School Student

“Tanka e no / jōnetsu kurai / wakatte yo / kōkōsei no / anata ga suki da”

• Understand at least my passion for tanka
• I love you, high-school student

The look at a high-school student to whom Tawara was teaching tanka in her days as a high school Japanese teacher. Singing of the subtle distance between teacher and student in a romantic phrase. A poem reflecting her occupational experience.

Representative Poem 6: A Scene of the Everyday

“Basutabu ni / yu wo hatte iru / yoru / watashi ga / watashi no yukagen wo / kimerareru kōfuku”

• A night filling the bathtub with hot water
• The happiness that I can decide my own hot-water level

The happiness of a woman living alone deciding her own bath water. At first glance a trivial everyday, but a scene of a woman’s independence — neither sweet nor bitter, sung matter-of-factly.

Tawara’s Style

1. Perfect Colloquial

Not using any archaic words or techniques, she makes tanka in exactly the language modern Japanese people speak. She naturally uses conversational forms like “~dayone” (~isn’t it) and “~chatta” (~went and did).

2. The Subject of Love

Over 30% of Sarada Kinenbi is love poems. Sweet love, the foreboding of parting, the temperature gap between man and woman, a night alone — she sings every side of modern love.

3. Concrete Proper Nouns

“July 6,” “bathtub,” “phone,” “aijin de ii no” (song lyrics) — she uses concrete proper nouns that stamp the age. This lets her poems reach the reader of her time directly.

4. Faithful Preservation of 5-7-5-7-7

Where avant-garde tanka destroyed the fixed form, Tawara strictly keeps the syllable counts of 5-7-5-7-7. This realizes a fusion of old and new: the outward form is traditional as “tanka,” but the content is fully modern.

5. Brightness and Lightness

A style reflecting the brightness, fun, and lightness of bubble-era Japanese culture. The opposite pole of Tsukamoto Kunio’s heavy difficulty. The pop-ification of tanka.

The Social Phenomenon of Sarada Kinenbi

Right After Publication

• June-September 1987: became a topic by word of mouth, sold out at bookstores nationwide
• End of 1987: passed 1,000,000 copies
• 1988: reached 2,800,000 copies

Media Exposure

• Featured on NHK’s News, Close-up Gendai, Tanka programs
• Cover / feature stories in general weekly magazines (Shūkan Asahi, AERA)
• Appeared in commercials for cosmetics, food, etc.

Tawara became the “idol of the tanka world” and the object of admiration of young women. This was an unprecedented celebrification in tanka history.

The New Word “Salad Anniversary”

“Sarada Kinenbi” went beyond a collection’s name to become the buzzword of 1987. Today too, the culture of “making a two-person anniversary” is passed on among young couples.

Influence on Education

• Tawara’s poems were included in middle school and high school Japanese textbooks
• When Japanese teachers “teach tanka,” Tawara’s poems are most often used as the entry point
• The penetration of tanka into younger age groups differs greatly before and after Tawara.

Tawara and the Relationship to Avant-Garde Tanka

Tawara’s style at first glance looks like the opposite pole of avant-garde tanka (Tsukamoto, Terayama, Okai). But in fact there is deep continuity:

Points of Inheritance

• Use of the colloquial — the line of Tsukamoto’s “Nihon dasshutsu shitashi, kōtei penguin mo”
• Modernization of subject — not the four seasons or love of the Heian era, but modern life
• The stance of making tanka as “a modern poem”

Differences

• Difficulty vs. clarity — Tsukamoto’s difficulty, Tawara’s plainness
• Symbol vs. concreteness — the symbolism of the avant-garde, the concreteness of Tawara
• Intellectual reader vs. mass reader — the few of the avant-garde, the many of Tawara

By popularizing the legacy of avant-garde tanka, Tawara completed a strategy of survival for tanka.

Tawara Machi After That

Childcare-Era Tanka (1997-)

After giving birth to a son in 1997, Tawara left many poems on the subject of childcare:

“Tashika naru / ko gurai no hatachi / mukaeru hi / tsuma wa shimijimi / haha to naru yokan” (Toretate no Tanka, 1989)

“Musuko to uta wo tsukureba / mairu ka mawazu mo / nani ka atarashiki / sekai ga miyuru” (Pū-san no Hana, 2004)

She engraves the life of a modern Japanese mother in tanka. This is a modern version of Yosano Akiko’s maternal poetry of 100 years ago.

Moving to Ishigaki and Miyazaki

In 2011 she moved to Ishigaki Island in the wake of the earthquake; in 2016 she moved to Miyazaki Prefecture. She continues her life of childcare in nature. She is also actively transmitting on SNS (X, Instagram).

Educational Activity

As selector for NHK’s NHK Tanka, tanka classroom in various places, judge for high-school tanka contests — contributing to the expansion of the foot of the mountain of tanka.

Dialogues with Her Son

In 2018 she published a tanka collection Mirai no Saizu based on dialogues with her son. Conversation with her middle-school-aged son becomes the inspiration for her tanka.

The Significance of Tawara Machi

1. Success of the Popularization of Tanka

For the 100 years since the Meiji era, tanka had been “a poetry of the experts.” With the commercial success of 2,800,000 copies, Tawara returned tanka to a poetry of the masses. A rare phenomenon since the Heian era.

2. Completion of Colloquial Tanka

Through Takuboku (three-line writing) and Tsukamoto (experiment), colloquial tanka is completed in Tawara. The colloquial tanka of Homura Hiroshi, Kinoshita Tatsuya, and others is Tawara’s direct heir.

3. Elevation of Women Poets’ Position

After Tawara’s success, the presence of women poets rose dramatically. Modern tanka’s main poets — Kōno Yūko, Baba Akiko, Homura Hiroshi (male, but treating femininity) — are heavily female.

4. Tanka in Educational Settings

Before Tawara, tanka was thought “difficult and old” at school. After Tawara, the recognition that “tanka can be made in your own words” spread. This expanded tanka composition among middle and high school students.

5. Road to SNS Tanka

The SNS tanka on Twitter (X) and Instagram from the late 2000s is a direct lineage of Tawara’s colloquial tanka. That tanka naturally fits the 140-character frame is also thanks to Tawara’s making of the colloquial.

40 Years After “Sarada Kinenbi”

In 2027 Sarada Kinenbi will mark 40 years since publication. From today’s viewpoint:

What Has Not Changed

• The everyday intimacy of “kono aji ga ii ne” remains fresh after 40 years
• Colloquial tanka is completely settled
• The subject of love is universal

What Has Changed

• The brightness of the bubble era is somewhat dated to today’s youth
• Views of love and gender have changed (“aijin de ii no” has a different ring today)
• The language of SNS has become the mainstream of the new colloquial

That Tawara Machi herself is still active and still transmitting on SNS connects the legacy of Sarada Kinenbi to today.

Tawara Machi and the Lineage of Modern Tanka

Next-generation poets influenced by Tawara:

• Homura Hiroshi (1962-) — same generation as Tawara, the center of modern tanka
• Higashi Naoko (1963-) — poet and tanka poet, style close to Tawara
• Masuno Kōichi (1968-) — inherits Tawara’s colloquial
• Katō Jirō (1959-) — Tanka Research Prize

And 21st-century young poets:

• Kinoshita Tatsuya (1988-)
• Okano Daishi (1980-)
• Suzukake Shin (1986-)

These young poets stand in the lineage of Tawara’s colloquial, concrete, brightness. The mainstream of modern tanka strongly reflects the post-Tawara era.

From This Article to the Next

After Tawara Machi, in the present (2000s onward), young poets of the age of SNS and smartphones are making a new colloquial tanka. Centered on Homura Hiroshi, Kinoshita Tatsuya, Okano Daishi, Suzukake Shin, Okamoto Yūya, with tanka posts on Twitter (X) and Instagram, the rise of tanka mook publications, and experiments in SF tanka and Vocaloid tanka, the next article traces the newest face of modern tanka.