Cadavers and Poetry: Henmi Yo's A Sea of Eyes―to My Dead

Abstract

This paper seeks to shed light on Henmi Yō's criticism of poetic expression after the Great East Japan Earthquake as revealed in his poetry collection A Sea of Eyes―to My Dead. I first examine other works that were also published after the earthquake, in order to ascertain that the metaphysics of the cadaver, hidden from view by the spectacle of the earthquake, problematizes the “criminal intent” of the individual by confusing ideological distinctions between the living and the dead. Through my analysis of two poems from Henmi's collection, I show that the poet positively creates a conflict between the cadaver, which is materialized, and language, which resists this materialization, and that the very existence of the cadaver can falsify the poet's own sense of reality. From this arises the question of whether it is even possible to think of one's own responsibility without imagining the dead.