was the

pen-name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of , a

Japanese author This is an alphabetical list of writers who are Japanese, or are famous for having written in the Japanese language. Writers are listed by the native order of Japanese names, family name followed by given name to ensure consistency although some ...

noted for his poetry in pre-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Japan.

Life

Wakayama was born in

Togo, Miyazaki was a town located in Higashiusuki District, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 5,025 and the density of 22.97 persons per km². The total area was 218.73 km². On February 25, 2006, Tōgō was merg ...

, (now part of the city of Hyūga) as the eldest son of a doctor. He became interested in poetry from middle school, taking the name of "Bokusui" from the age of 18. He entered

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

in 1904, where one of his classmates was Hakushu Kitahara. After graduation, he was hired by the ''Chuo Shimbun'' newspaper in 1909, but quit after only five months. He decided to devote himself to poetry, and became a disciple of

Saishū Onoe (20 August, 1876 – 1, January, 1957) was the pen name of , a Japanese tanka poet, educator, and calligrapher. Biography After finishing Tokyo Imperial University in 1901, after teaching at Tetsugaku-kan, Onoe professed at the early days of ...

. He traveled all over Japan and

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, composing many ''

tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the '' Man'yōshū'' (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to distinguish "short p ...

'' about the places he visited. He settled in

Numazu, Shizuoka is a city located in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 189,486 in 91,986 households, and a population density of 1,014 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Numazu is at the nor ...

in 1920. He also loved

sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

, and heavy drinking eventually resulted in

cirrhosis Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue repai ...

of the liver. He died in 1928. Before he died he wrote a death haiku that reads:

Works

Poetry books

# (published July 1908) # (published January 1910) # (published April 1910) # (published September 1911) # (published September 1912) # (published September 1913) # (published April 1914) # (published October 1915) # (published June 1916) # (published August 1917) # (published July 1918) # (published May 1918) # (published March 1921) # (published May 1923) # (published September 1938)

External links

Official website

at

Aozora Bunko Aozora Bunko (, literally the "Blue Sky Library", also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousands of works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-o ...

numazu city Wakayama Bokusui memorial hallHyuga city websiteof Haiku by Bokusui Wakayama in Chiba prefecture
1885 births 1928 deaths 20th-century Japanese poets People from Miyazaki Prefecture Waseda University alumni {{Japan-writer-stub