Background
Takuboku Ishikawa was born on February 20, 1886 in Iwate Prefecture, the son of Ittei, a priest of the Hotokuji Temple, Shibutami Village.
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Takuboku Ishikawa was born on February 20, 1886 in Iwate Prefecture, the son of Ittei, a priest of the Hotokuji Temple, Shibutami Village.
He attended Shibutami Elementary School, Morioka Upper Elementary School, and Morioka Middle School.
Takuboku Ishikawa turned poet and wrote for the Myojo magazine under the pen-name of Takuboku. Flattered with this little success he returned to Tokyo again (1904) and published an anthology titlea Akogare (longing) (1905). At this time his father left the temple and the responsibility of supporting the family fell on his shoulders, so he returned home and became an assistant teacher at a local school, but the salary hardly kept the family alive. Realizing this, the family moved to Hokkaido and he became a journalist at Hakodate. He did not stay there long as a big fire destroyed the city. He then moved about and finally settled in Kushiro where he became chief editor of a newspaper. But Takuboku Ishikawa was not content as his heart was in Tokyo. So he returned to Tokyo for the third time and began writing novels but without any success. He then tried to reform waka- poetry by bringing it down to a lower level and turned socialist. Finally he was able to find a job with Asahi Shimbun and sent for his family and settled down in Hongo. His second attempt at publishing Ichiaku-no-suna (1911), was quite a success and it seemed his career had begun but unfortunately he fell ill and died. Another of his anthologies titled Kanashiki Gangu (sorrowful toy) was published posthumously.
His most famous works fuse tanka form, a classic Japanese verse structure consisting of thirty-one syllables, with intellectual and autobiographical subject matter that was not previously considered acceptable for such a traditional poetic form. For this innovation, Takuboku is credited with revitalizing Japanese poetry and strongly influencing the work of many twentieth-century Japanese poets.
In 1905 he married Horiai Setsuko.
