Japanese Immigrants and the Brazilian Haicai
by Débora Fernandes Tavares
Brazil hosts hundreds of anonymous poets who admire and write haicai. Most of their books are printed through small book publishers with no marketing or commercial promotion but spread into the haicai community that grows every year. The majority of the poems are written by non-Japanese descendents and then a question is raised: how and why was haicai known and admired by Brazilian people?
Japanese haiku was known in Brazil in the beginning of the 20th century through French translations and also through Japanese immigrants.
MASUDA (1988) considers 1908 the year of the arrival of Japanese haiku in Brazil with the Japanese immigrants. Boarding Kasato-Maru navy, the immigrant Shûhei Uetsuka (1876-1935), haimei Hyokotsu, was supposed to bring the first haiku on Brazilian land.
In 1927, the Japanese immigrant Kenjiro Sato (1898-1979), haimei Nenpuku Sato, arrived in Brazil. Despite writing poems only in the Japanese language, Nenpuku Sato received from his master Kyoshi Takahama (1874-1959) the mission of spreading haiku in Brazil.
According to MENDONÇA (1999) Kyoshi Takahama considered haicai the literary art of the simple people and highlighted three important haicai composing characteristics: kigo (a term that referred to the seasons), 17 syllables, and poetic language.
Nenpuku arrived in São Paulo state and founded in 1948 the haiku magazine Kokage, which lasted until 1977. The haiku composed by the Japanese immigrants who lived in Brazil were published in it.