was a Japanese poet.事実> としての宗教性の恢復へ : 山尾三省と交響するものがたり ("A return to nature : The life history of Mr. Sansei YAMAO")
''International cultural studies'', Vol. 10 (2004-12-25), pp. 195-220, Yokohama City University, . Sansei Yamo was born in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

in 1938. He studied western philosophy at

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 ...

, but dropped out before graduation. In the latter half of the 1960s, he and his companions

Nanao Sakaki Nanao may refer to: Places *, Japan **Nanao Line a rail line through Nanao, Ishikawa **Nanao Station a station on the Nanao Line *Nan'ao County (), Shantou, Guangdong **Nan'ao Island (), forming most of Nan'ao County *Nan'ao Subdistrict (), a su ...

and Tetsuo Nagasawa started a commune called ''Buzoku'' ( en, tribe), with an aim to change society. In 1973, he went on a

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

with his family for a year. Upon returning to Japan, he moved with his family in 1977 to a ghost village on Yaku-Shima, an island located in the south of Japan, famous for the Japanese Joumon cedar, which lives for several thousand years. He began to build a village at Shirakawa mountain. He wrote poetry and prose, and farmed his field there until his death. He visited his old friend poet

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...

in the spring of 1997 at Snyder's house in the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

. In 1966 Sansei Yamao had initially met Snyder, who travelled to Japan to receive his first Zen training in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. At that time, Sansei Yamao and Gary Snyder traversed the Ominesan mountain range in Nara, which is known as the

Shugendō is a highly syncretic religion, a body of ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines and ritual systems drawn from local fol ...

mountain, together for a week. After Snyder went back to the United States, while Sansei went to India and then subsequently moved to Yaku-Shima, the two had not been in contact with each other. Therefore, when Sansei Yamao met Gary Snyder again in 1997, he was surprised to learn that Snyder's recent emphasis was

bioregionalism Bioregionalism is a philosophy that suggests that political, cultural, and economic systems are more sustainable and just if they are organized around naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined t ...

, because he, too, had been thinking about very similar things for 20 years. He said, "The earth is just a region, a region is just the earth." The year following their second meeting, "聖なる地球のつどいかな" (''Seinaru chikyu no tudoi kana'') was published in Japan (ed. 山里勝己 Katsunori Yamazato, 山と渓谷社 Yama to keikokusha, 1998), a collection of their dialogues held in the Sierra Nevada. Sansei Yamao died on 28 August 2001.

Selected bibliography

*''Seirojin'' (1981) *''No no michi - essays about

Kenji Miyazawa was a Japanese novelist and poet of children's literature from Hanamaki, Iwate, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He was also known as an agricultural science teacher, a vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, and utopian social acti ...

'' (1983) *''Jomonsugi no kokage nite'' (1985) *''Birobaboshi no shita de'' (1993) *''Seinaru chikyu no tudoi kana'' (1998), collection of dialogues with Gary Snyder *''Koko de kurasu tanoshimi'' (1999), collection of essays *''Animism to iu kibo'' (2000), 5 days of lectures at the University of the Ryukyus *''Kami o yonda Issa no haiku - kibo to shite no animizumu'' (2000) *''Minami no hikari no naka de'' (2002) *''Inori / prayer'' (2002) *Sansei Yamao Poetry Works (translated into English) "Make the fire," "Mitto-kun and a cloud," "A Moonlit Night," "Dawn Cafe Au Leit," "At the Mountain," "Sea," "Wind"
"Index page"
, ''happano.org'' SINGLE BLISS: Yamao Sansei Translations by Scott Watson. Gardnerville, NV. Country Valley Press. 2007. "After Rain." Translated by Scott Watson. Atlanta, GA. ''

Atlanta Review ''Atlanta Review'' is an international poetry journal based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded by Daniel Veach in 1994 and is published twice a year. Karen Head of the Georgia Institute of Technology became editor in 2016. The jou ...

''. Spring/Summer 2002, p. 52. "An Island of Life." Yamao Sansei translations by Scott Watson. Sendai, Japan. The Tohoku Gakuin University Review, No.139. November 2004, pp. 91 ~ 112.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamao, Sansei 1938 births 2001 deaths 20th-century Japanese poets People from Tokyo