Dream Song 73: Karesansui, Ryoan-ji by John Berryman (from his visit to Kyoto in 1957) The taxi makes the vegetables fly.‘Dozo kudasai,’ I have him wait.Past the bright lake up into the temple,shoes off, andmy right leg swings me left.I do survive beside the garden I came seven thousand mile the other waysupplied of energies …Read More
Author: John Dougill (Page 17 of 45)
Book Review of Tokyo: A Biography by Stephen Mansfield (208 pages) Disasters, Destruction and Renewal: The Story of an Indomitable City Reviewer: Ian Yates Tokyo, the city, the metropolis, the legend, has always been overpowering to me. It has intimidated and frightened me by its vastness. This fear morphed into disdain and a belief that …Read More
A small group of us met at Keage Station and began the walk up to Agon-shu’s huge Hoshi Matsuri event in the hills above Kiyomizu-dera. I’d been wanting to go for years, but always seemed to hear about it afterward, usually in that half-page ad in the Japan Times that the sect shells out big …Read More
At WiK’s Words and Music bonenkai on Dec 8, long term resident Ken Rodgers delivered the following piece. One time organiser of Kyoto Connection and managing editor of Kyoto Journal, Ken has been instrumental in enriching the expatriate experience for those living in the ancient capital. _________________ The Pillowbook of Moe UzumasaGetting behind a microphone …Read More
a year in review — a haphazard collection of unruly short verse by Lisa Wilcut SPRING blossoms assembling to view springtime crowds below–– beckoned by sake, smoke and laughter the whole body of the bird on the ledge vibrating with the effort of each note down to its last …Read More
The following poem, a contemporary take on the Californian Dream, was delivered at the 2019 bonenkai by Preston Keido Houser, who followed it up with a shakuhachi piece in lighter vein. A villanelle is a fixed-form poem consisting of five tercets and a quatrain and follows a specific rhyme scheme using only two different sounds. …Read More
Mayumi Kawaharada writes: At the beginning of autumn, on a sunny day, I joined a volunteer event of fixing bamboo fences alongside the bamboo forests in Arashiyama. It was organised by a NPO called “People together for Mt. Ogura”. My haiku master , Stephen H Gill, is one of the cofounders of this group. They …Read More
Culture and tourism has become a big topic worldwide, and two months after WiK’s Heritage and Tourism symposium, Unesco and Unwto came to town for the 4th UNWTO/UNESCO World Conference on Tourism and Culture, which was followed by a two-hour Kyoto City symposium on promoting sustainable culture and tourism. I found the former more stimulating …Read More
Report by Iris Reinbacher… On the evening of December 8, WiK held its bonenkai, a yearly tradition under the theme of “Words and Music” (for last year’s account, see here). We celebrated the old year, which not only brought a new era to Japan as a whole, but also proved to be a very successful …Read More
Prompted by Nick Teele’s account of reviving a 33 temple pilgrimage, a website reader from Denmark named Esben Andreasen has submitted an account of his own 13 temple pilgrimage to Kyoto. The piece below is an edited translation of his article which originally appeared in a Danish journal. Esben’s first visit to Japan was in …Read More
Kyoto Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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