Group working on Comrade
1 media/wsk-making-journal_thumb.jpg 2019-08-23T15:26:55+00:00 Maxwell Mitchell 5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69 13 2 Group of Japanese internees working on journal Comrade, from Memorandum of My Youth, 1949, 264. plain 2019-08-23T15:28:30+00:00 Memorandum of My Youth, 1949, 264. Maxwell Mitchell 5fec7a6574d32fe574c01ba927cd57c749ceca69This page is referenced by:
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Repatriated
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The positive intensity and teamwork that Shikoku emphasizes in this watercolor of Japanese internees in the Soviet camp huddled together to work on a journal Comrade suggests the attraction that Our Poem circle & its journal held for Shikoku once he returned to Hiroshima.
After its charismatic leader Tōge Sankichi died and as the JCP fractured in 1951. Our Poems’ circle and its remarkable journal suffered a decline in idealism and impact. However, this brief, fulfilling and vivid experience with Our Poems circle was sufficient to sustain and fuel Shikoku throughout his life. He met with discrimination as a “red” repatriate as he searched for employment but finally found temporary work at the City Hall, where he would eventually spend his career. Throughout his working life and retirement, Shikoku persisted at every turn in finding ways to put his beliefs, his art, and this framework into practice, and collaborating with other activist artists in Hiroshima.
