A poet of peace

The life and influence of Yorifumi Yaguchi

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Japanese Mennonite poet Yorifumi Yaguchi describes the Bible as a “very new book” to him. “I use a lot of Bible passages for contemporary issues,” he says. Yaguchi, a Buddhist turned Christian and Mennonite, embraces the peace stance in his poetry and names Christ’s resurrection as the “victory of nonviolence.”

Last July, Good Books published a new collection of Yaguchi’s poetry, The Poetry of Yorifumi Yaguchi (see box). The 150 poems included in the book span Yaguchi’s life, from his childhood during World War II to his career as poetry professor and editor, Mennonite pastor and a nationally recognized poet.

“His images are startling and kind of relentless, because they step outside what we’re used to,” says Phyllis Pellman Good, senior book editor at Good Books. “His Christian faith is very real because it was not automatic for him … he has an ongoing relationship with his faith that is always full of surprises.”

This collection’s significance lies in Yaguchi’s impressive skills as a poet and that he lives in a different world from us, Good says. The significance for Mennonites includes the many streams within him that surface in his poems, such as the war he experienced as a child, the influence of his Buddhist grandfather, his Christian faith and his commitment to peace, she adds.

Good says the collection feels like a “faithful cut of his work,” and many of the poems are relatively current. She says she finds the poems written collaboratively with poets William Stafford and Robert Bly particularly interesting, as they open readers’ eyes to new form and format.

The book’s editor, retired Goshen (Ind.) College English professor Wilbur Birky, approached Good Books about publishing a follow-up collection to the 30 poems included in Three Mennonite Poets (Good Books, 1986). Birky first met Yaguchi during his time at Goshen Biblical Seminary. But Birky and Yaguchi became neighbors and friends during Birky’s sabbatical year in Japan.

In October 2006, Yaguchi, widely known in Japan, read from his new book at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Va., as well as at Goshen College and at the Mennonite writing conference at Bluffton (Ohio) University. Yaguchi encouraged students at EMU to act as voices for pacifism, as many people in Japan do not hear the voice of pacifism or the voice of nonviolent Christians; many do not trust Christianity and see it as a violent religion.
Yaguchi, born in 1932, learned the Shinto way, which included emperor worship and a strong nationalism, from his father. During his childhood, Yaguchi believed Japan was a “divine country,” and he thought the United States and Britain were “beasts.” He wanted to be a soldier to fight against the United States, and many of his friends shared this dream.

However, from his grandfather he learned Buddhism and peaceful ways, and his mother had an interest in Christianity. Yaguchi attended a Christian college but not particularly because of its religious affiliation. There he studied T.S. Eliot but continued to view violence and war as a contradiction in the Christian faith and was only briefly introduced to Mennonites.

Birky says one often thinks of someone coming from a different religious tradition and encountering Mennonites later. “(Yaguchi), in a way, came to that backward,” Birky says. “He was a pacifist first and then an Anabaptist, or Christian, second.” Birky has written a paper on Yaguchi, “Staring Down the Muzzle from Yomoto to Baghdad: Memory and Urgency in the Poetry of Yorifumi Yaguchi.”

One of Yaguchi’s first encounters with Christianity involved discovering Christmas cards in a dumpster, Birky says. Yaguchi felt intrigued by the worship of a young child and couldn’t reconcile that with the violence he saw against Japan from the United States.

Yaguchi continued to wrestle with issues of faith and violence until he met Ralph and Genevieve Buckwalter, missionaries in Japan. When Yaguchi paid a special visit to Ralph to challenge him about Christianity and war, Ralph introduced him to pacifism within Christianity. Birky says that with this knowledge, Yaguchi’s resistance to Christianity dissolved and he became baptized on Easter Sunday 1958.

Later, Yaguchi studied at Goshen Biblical Seminary from 1962 to 1965 and earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree. There he wrote an account of his conversion, “The Bible Was Nonsense to Me.” During seminary, he studied Bible and theology and wrote poetry. According to Birky, Yaguchi writes poetry to “get into the mystery of Scripture.” In his poetry about nature, he often uses the Japanese tradition of haiku.

Birky says he admires Yaguchi’s approach toward violence, both current and historical, in his writing. Birky remembers when Yaguchi raised an important question at the writing conference at Goshen College, held one month after 9/11. When Birky picked him up at the airport, they talked about recent events, and Yaguchi asked, “What are Mennonite writers writing?” This honest and challenging question spread through the conference.

Yaguchi is first a poet in the Japanese language, as less than half his poems are in English, and he continues to publish in Japanese. Some of his poems in English he originally wrote in English, but most he translated himself.

Birky selected almost half of Yaguchi’s more than 300 poems in English for the book and organized them by theme and chronology. The themes are “Silence,” “Child of War,” “Horizon,” “Breath of God, “Words Made Flesh” and “War and Peace.” A quote from Yaguchi—either from his writing, a comment he made or other poetry—introduces each section.

Birky says he did not plan on using this interaction between theme and time initially, but it developed over the course of the process. With his background in education, Birky thought this organization served poetry readers but also hopes anyone can pick it up and browse through it.

Birky’s favorite poem, and Yaguchi’s most-published poem, “In My Garden,” describes the war wounded developing a “kind of maimed orchestra,” he says. “It’s an antiwar poem in its most tender form,” he says.

Gene Stoltzfus, a friend of Yaguchi’s, visited him in Japan two summers ago. Stoltzfus, director of Christian Peacemaker Teams from 1988 to 2004, and Yaguchi met at seminary 40 years ago but stayed in touch through the years.

During his visit, Stoltzfus says, he witnessed Yaguchi’s profound leadership and experienced the respect people have for Yaguchi all over Japan. “People seek his endorsement of activities that have to do with peace,” he says.

According to Stoltzfus, Yaguchi is a leader because of the person he has been, the poetry he has written and the reflection he has brought to the heart of Japanese life. “It’s a gift not only to Japan but to the whole world,” he says. “His voice will last long beyond his lifetime.”

Anna Groff is assistant editor of The Mennonite.

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Additional Notes

In my garden
by Yorifumi Yaguchi

Refugees come to my garden
where the grasses without insecticide
grow unweeded; a legless katydid,
an armless cricket, a wingless grasshopper,
a snail with its broken shell …

After a few nights
they are able to start
a kind of tuning up. Tonight
when the harvest moon floats
high at the center of the sky,

I leave my windows all open
and am attracted through the night
by the maimed orchestra
while my house keeps floating
on the waves of the surrounding grasses.