Nakahara Chuya

Chūya Nakahara (中原 中也, Nakahara Chūya) (29 April 1907 - 22 October 1937) was a poet active in early Shōwa period Japan. Nakahara Chūya was born in Yamaguchi Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1907, where his father was an army doctor. In his early life, his father was posted to Hiroshima and Kanazawa, returning to Yamaguchi in 1914. In 1915, his younger brother died, and in sorrow he turned to composing poetry. He submitted his first three verses to a local... more

Chūya Nakahara (中原 中也, Nakahara Chūya) (29 April 1907 - 22 October 1937) was a poet active in early Shōwa period Japan. Nakahara Chūya was born in Yamaguchi Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1907, where his father was an army doctor. In his early life, his father was posted to Hiroshima and Kanazawa, returning to Yamaguchi in 1914. In 1915, his younger brother died, and in sorrow he turned to composing poetry. He submitted his first three verses to a local newspaper in 1920, when he was still in elementary school. In 1923, he moved to the Ritsumeikan Middle School in Kyoto. He later graduated from the Foreign Studies Department of Tokyo Imperial University. Initially, Chūya favored poetry in the Japanese traditional tanka format, but he was later (in his teens) attracted to the modern free verse styles advocated by Dadaist poet Takahashi Shinkichi and by Tominaga Tarō. After he moved to Tokyo, he met Kawakami Tetsutaro and Ooka Shohei, with whom he began publishing a poetry journal, Hakuchigun ... less