Japanese Elements in the Poetry of Fred Wah and Roy Kiyooka
Susan Fisher Japanese Elements in the Poetry of Fred Wah and Roy Kiyooka For nearly a century, Japanese poetic forms have pro- vided inspiration for poets writing in English. The importance of Japanese poetry for Ezra Pound and its role in the formation of Imagism have been well documented (see, for example, Kawano, Kodama, and Miner). Charles Olson, in his manifesto "Projective Verse" (1950), drew examples from Japanese sources as well as Western ones. Several of the Beat Generation poets, such as Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Philip Whalen, studied in Japan and their work reflects a serious interest in Japanese poetry. Writing in 1973, p o e t and translator Kenneth Rexroth declared that "classical Japanese and Chinese poetry are today as influential on American poetry as English or French of any period, and close to determinative for those born since 1940" (157). Rexroth may have been overstating this influence; he, after all, had a role in creating it. Nonetheless, what Gary Snyder calls the "myste- riously plain quality" of East Asian verse has served as a model for the simple diction and directness of much contemporary poetry ("Introduction" 4). Writers belonging to these two generations of Asian-influenced American poets—the Imagists and the Beat poets—had no ethnic connection to Asia. But the demographic changes of the last few decades have produced a third generation whose interest in Asian poetry derives at least in part from their own Asian background. Several Asian Canadian poets have written works that are modelled on Japanese genres or make sustained allusions to Japanese literature.
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