更新日：2010年7月5日

Yagi Jukichi

Yagi Jukichi, poet, was born in Tokyo in 1898 and educated at the Kanagawa Prefecture Normal School in Kamakura, and then later at the Tokyo Higher Normal School.

While at school, he attended the Methodist Church in Kamakura and became attracted to the poetry of Tagore. In 1919, he was baptized at the Komagome Christian Church in Tokyo, but was soon drawn to the Nonchurch Christianity advocated by the essayist, Uchimura Kanzo. Two years later, Yagi was assigned to teach at the Mikage Normal School in Hyogo Prefecture. From around this time, he began to write verse as a way of expressing his faith. He published his first collection of poems AKI NO HITOMI (Autumn Eye) in 1925 and joined Shi no Ie (House of poems), a coterie presided over by Sato Sonosuke. Although Yagi contributed several pieces to poetry magazines such as Nihon Shijin, he kept little company and remained shy of poetic circles.

In 1926, he was hospitalized with tuberculosis. He returned home to recuperate, but died the next year, a devout Christian, at the age of 29. It was only after his death and the publication of MAZUSHIKI SHINTO (Humble believer), YAGI JUKICHI SHISHU (Yagi Jukichi anthology), and KAMI O YOBU (Talk to God) that he gained recognition as a religious poet.

Yagi lived in Kamakura from 1912 to 1917 at the dormitory of the Normal School, but with his delicate sensibility, he never managed to adjust to the military-style education.