It’s not easy to draw crowds to poetry events, but WiK managed twenty plus customers last night packed into the Gnome for an evening of great variety. Each performer had five minutes to display their talents, and each took a very different approach to their five minutes of fame Thanks are due to all those …Read More
Author: John Dougill (Page 27 of 45)
Kirsty Kawano: Interview 1) Could you tell us about your background and connection with Japan? I first came to Japan on a one-year student exchange directly after high school. I had always been interested in living in a country with a different language, so when Japan was proposed as a destination I went with it. …Read More
1) Could you tell us a little bit about your background and your connection with Japan? My first connection to Japan was through the Suzuki method. I was two and a half, and they had this crazy idea of teaching young children to play musical instruments, but you know something? It worked. When I was …Read More
Leading Shinto scholar Mark Teeuwen, has written several influential books on matters related to Japan’s indigenous faith. He’s known in particular for disputing the idea that there was such a thing as ‘Shinto’ in Japan’s ancient past, but that it was a later construct. His new publication, A Social History of the Ise Shrines, co-written …Read More
Mayumi Kawaharada writes… Do you know the American sweets cafe called CC’s coffee shop in Kyoto, which was established in 1974 by the American poet and editor Cid Corman? When he and his Japanese wife (Shizumi Konishi) left for America in 1980, his wife’s sister and her husband inherited the cafe. He returned to Kyoto again …Read More
Mike Freiling Mike was born in San Francisco and attended USF as an undergraduate, where he first became interested in poetry at readings by Allen Ginsburg, Gary Snyder and others of that generation. At USF he also became interested in Japanese literature, as he and his friends read anything by Yukio Mishima that they could …Read More
Sanshi suimei – purple mountains and crystal streams So runs the epithet about Kyoto which the nineteenth-century historian Rai Sanyo used as the name for his study by the banks of the Kamogawa (the thatched cottage still stands next to Marutamachi; see photo below). From there he must have had a clear sight right along the Eastern …Read More
It’s on the outskirts of Kyoto. It’s in spacious woodland. It dates back to the eighth century and pre-Heian times. It’s little-known, but once it was counted amongst the top 22 shrines of Japan. Oharano Shrine is closely associated with the powerful Fujiwara clan. It was set up by the dominant family at the time …Read More
“A white day” Fluffy white motifs Decorate a hospital window— Evanescent art Mountains and cars Wearing white caps— Frosty morning A cup of coffee At the hospital room— News of snowstorm Cars and buses Timidly on the road— Snowman smiles White footsteps Start vanishing at once— Wintry sun Evening grows …Read More
This year’s winning entry was by Terin Jackson, an American living in Kyoto who writes a blog for his private tour company. The competition took him out of his comfort zone, forcing him to cut down on his natural verbosity in order to keep within the word limit. ‘The process of whittling it all down …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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