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• 1 2019-09-04T15:50:42+00:00 Rivers 3 plain 2019-09-04T15:52:32+00:00 The penetrating gaze of a mass of workers starting out from this poster expresses the intensity of social commitment that drove Tsuchiya Kiyoshi to write “Rivers” (Kawa), a four-act play about Tōge Sankichi and the Our Poems culture circle. Tsuchiya (1930-1988) was a dedicated leftist who went underground for much of the Occupation. Inspired by the courage, passion, and unity of All Poems circle, Tsuchiya did extensive research and interviewed Shikoku, among other former members. He produced the first version of his play Rivers in Hiroshima in 1963 on the tenth anniversary of Tōge’s death. Set in Tōge’s apartment, the play portrays the hopes and despair of the All Poems circle members as they debate the uses of art in protest and strive to better society during the Occupation.
  
  1963 was also the year that The Japan Council Against A- and H-Bombs (Gensuikyō), the most influential anti-nuclear organization, lost credibility as it fractured over Cold War political infighting. Tsuchiya recalls that, on the day Rivers debuted, right-wingers drove through Hiroshima shouting from bullhorns, as if to mock what appeared to be the demise of the anti-nuclear movement, while 6,000 riot police patrolled the city.
  
  Determined to create a play meaningful to college students who demanded a movement that could overcome the disfunctions of Gensuikyō, as well as in response to the tumultuous Vietnam War era, Tsuchiya produced a second and then a third versions of the play in 1964 & 1965. Each revision expressed slightly more hope in its depiction of the Our Poems community of passionate activists & poets. For Tsuchiya’s fourth and final version of Rivers in 1972, the playwright elaborated on his motives for reviving the play: “I vividly remember how electrifying it was at the 1965 production to see members of the audience get up from their seats, put on their antiwar sashes, grab their flags, and head directly from the theater to the peace march.” (1) By 1972, local citizen involvement in the annual August 6 peace ceremony had dropped and tourism became the city’s focus; some argued that only hibakusha had the authority to speak about the bomb.
  
  Put off by the flood of A-bomb elegies and A-bomb neurosis, ubiquitous prayers for peace, and resignation at the nuclear age, Tsuchiya advocated a return to the origins of the peace movement. For him, that was the fiery days of the Our Poems circle; the astounding power of a modest book like Atomic Bomb Poetry; the unapologetic celebration of the working class on the journal covers; the courageous, at times reckless, political commitment of young people marching & passing out handbills in defiance of police orders; and the orphaned hibakusha for whom poetry became a space to face the pain of loss and war, but also to speak up against injustice.