Last Farewells to Masajo — A Life of Love and Haiku
Susumu Takiguchi Oxford, England
One of the most distinguished and best loved haiku poets, Suzuki Masajo (1906-2003), has passed away. She was 96. She died a natural death peacefully at a retirement home in Tokyo on Friday 14 March 2003. Her life was one of love and haiku, which is chronicled in her own unforgettable poems and essays.
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Masajo was a successful business woman and restaurateur, beside being a poet. She ran the famous watering place in Ginza, Tokyo, called "Unami", of which she took personal charge every day until she was 90. Born nearly a century ago into an old family of hoteliers in Chiba, dating back to the Edo Era (1603-1867), she lived a life comparable to those of heroines in operas such as La Traviata or Tosca. Her first husband "disappeared". Her elder sister, who inherited the inn business, suddenly died. Masajo took over the family business and married the sister's husband. They had a troubled married life from which she "walked out" to start her own new life in Tokyo at 50. She opened Unami and then her business and career as a haijin went from strength to strength, blooming and flowering even more beautifully every passing year. She made friends with some of the most famous writers and celebrities, was adored by them and became the heroin of at least two best-selling novels, one by Niwa Fumio and the other by Setouchi Jakucho. Incredibly, she never lost her humility and personality to put other people's interest first.
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Her haiku teachers included Kubota Mantaro and Anju Atsushi. They must have had an easy time as she was a born poet and a natural haijin and above all her life itself was poetry. Copies of her anthologies such as "Yu-botaru" (evening fireflies, 1976) and "Shi-Mokuren" (purple magnolia, 1999) are treasured by her ever-increasing fans as something more than haiku books.
Her haiku poems follow traditional Japanese lines in form, style and themes. However, these are mere stage sets. The content, impact and originality have come from her life itself. She was one of the best "actresses of life", where poetry, nature, human existence and events were all one. This is partly because she lived through one of the most dramatic times in Japanese history. As such, her haiku poems are rich and deep, ranging from despair and sadness to the rupture of sensual pleasure, from macabre tales to the lightest touch of humour.
