Last week I made a new poetry discovery which is always a thrilling thing: the poem ‘Rain Won’t’ by Kenji Miyazawa, one of Japan’s foremost 20th century poets. Miyazawa’s last poem was found, written in pencil in his notebook, when he died in 1933. In its spare and simple lines he says so much about the environment, care for others and determination to live a good, humble life. Thank you to Yuka Nakai for sharing this poem with me in such a beautiful edition (translated by Arthur Binard with elegant illustrations by Koji Yamamura, published by Imajinsha). I will treasure it.
Sue Dymoke was a poet, Associate Professor in Education at Nottingham Trent University and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts. What They Left Behind, her third full poetry collection was published by Shoestring Press in 2018. A posthumous collection, What to do Next, was published by Shoestring Press in 2023, when there was a memorial celebration of her life in University Hall, Nottingham. Sue's memorial video can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UDDSW_HOEc&t=60s This website is maintained in her memory by her civil partner, David Belbin, but will not be updated.
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Last week I made a new poetry discovery which is always a thrilling thing: the poem ‘Rain Won’t’ by Kenji Miyazawa, one of Japan’s foremost 20th century poets. Miyazawa’s last poem was found, written in pencil in his notebook, when he died in 1933. In its spare and simple lines he says so much about the environment, care for others and determination to live a good, humble life. Thank you to Yuka Nakai for sharing this poem with me in such a beautiful edition (translated by Arthur Binard with elegant illustrations by Koji Yamamura, published by Imajinsha). I will treasure it.
Sue Dymoke Poetry 