Documenting Hiroshima 80 years after A-bombing: On December 5, 1947, poetry collection Sange released with 100 poems graphically depicting carnage
Jan. 31, 2025
by Minami Yamashita, Staff Writer
On December 5, 1947, Shinoe Shoda, a poet who experienced the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and died in 1965 at the age of 54, secretly printed 150 self-published copies of her tanka poetry collection titled Sange in the printing office at the Hiroshima Prison in Hiroshima City. She intended to distribute the collection to friends and relatives. The collection’s publication information reveals it was released on the aforementioned date. The publication contains 100 poems describing the tragedy of the atomic bombing.
Sense of remorse
The opening poem of the collection expresses feelings for the dead. “A journal of grief dedicated to the souls of my compatriots, forced to die suddenly.” Graphic descriptions of chaotic scenes at the time of the atomic bombing continue — “In an instant of silence after the flash and roar, I open my eyes and see the scene rendered into chaos and hear the agonizing groans.” Continuing on, the poem reads, “Madam! Madam! Calling out for help is a human body covered in burns, with red flesh torn like a pomegranate.”
The title Sange was taken from the feelings of remorse Ms. Shoda experienced when reflecting on herself as a survivor. She wrote in her personal account titled Miminari (in English, ‘Ringing in ears’), published in 1962, that she had printed the collection “with the intention to mourn those who had died instantly and those who died later, and to comfort those who survived and were grieving and suffering.”
Ms. Shoda was 34 when she experienced the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. She was injured in the bombing at her home in the area of Hirano-machi (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), 1.7 kilometers from the hypocenter, and later fled to the Shoda family’s mountain cottage in the village of Ono (in present-day Hatsukaichi City). At the cottage, she welcomed in the wounded and cared for them while listening to their harrowing experiences. Since before the war, she had been writing and submitting poems to magazines, expressing what she saw and heard in the form of tanka poems.
In 1946, Ms. Shoda took her poetry to Suiko Sugiura, a Tokyo-based poet under whom she would study. Ms. Sugiura contributed a foreword to Ms. Shoda’s collection of poems and offered her encouragement. In the foreword, she praised Ms. Shoda’s poems for describing “the situation by consistently looking straight and staring intently at the subject at hand.”
However, the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ) had issued a press code to censor the media in September 1945, directing, “There shall be no false or destructive criticism of the Allied Powers.” Publications or reports about the atomic bombings that could lead to criticism of the U.S. military were thus restricted.
With small number of copies, evades censorship
The poetry collection Sange vividly conveys the cruelty of the atomic bombing. It is thought that the collection was able to evade censorship because only small numbers had been printed at the prison. Ms. Shoda wrote in Miminari that it was a “secret publication.” She criticized the situation that forced her in that way to publish her tanka poems, which described the “reality” of the atomic bombing. She added in the same account, “Obvious is that what is not in the interest of the powerful at the time and hits them where it hurts is deemed unacceptable.”
In that same year, 1947, Yasuo Yamamoto, a poet and an employee at the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper who died in 1983 at the age of 80, also published a collection of poems titled Reiun (‘Beautiful clouds’). Mr. Yamamoto’s second son had died a sudden death in 1944, and his oldest son, Masumi, had died in the atomic bombing the following year. Masumi was 13 at the time and a first-year student at Hiroshima First Middle School (present-day Kokutaiji High School). Reiun is a collection of poems about Mr. Yamamoto’s experiences and feelings.
“That voice is Masumi’s, isn’t it? Unbelievable how you could bear such deep wounds.” Masumi was working on the demolition of buildings in the city center on August 6, 1945, and had returned home with severe burns over his entire body, according to Mr. Yamamoto’s personal account contained in the compilation Hoshi wa Miteiru (‘The stars are watching’), published in 1954. That night, Masumi had quietly asked, “Is there really a Pure Land (a Buddhist concept of heaven)?” before breathing his last.
“I put my hand on your forehead and its warmth has gone. My child, my child, your life has already ended.” He decided to publish the collection of poems as an “offering to the spirit of my child,” as he wrote in the afterword of the account. After spending several months busily preparing the paper and other arrangements, he published the poems describing how the violent separation of parent and child by the atomic bombing was etched in his memory.
(Originally published on January 31, 2025)
On December 5, 1947, Shinoe Shoda, a poet who experienced the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and died in 1965 at the age of 54, secretly printed 150 self-published copies of her tanka poetry collection titled Sange in the printing office at the Hiroshima Prison in Hiroshima City. She intended to distribute the collection to friends and relatives. The collection’s publication information reveals it was released on the aforementioned date. The publication contains 100 poems describing the tragedy of the atomic bombing.
Sense of remorse
The opening poem of the collection expresses feelings for the dead. “A journal of grief dedicated to the souls of my compatriots, forced to die suddenly.” Graphic descriptions of chaotic scenes at the time of the atomic bombing continue — “In an instant of silence after the flash and roar, I open my eyes and see the scene rendered into chaos and hear the agonizing groans.” Continuing on, the poem reads, “Madam! Madam! Calling out for help is a human body covered in burns, with red flesh torn like a pomegranate.”
The title Sange was taken from the feelings of remorse Ms. Shoda experienced when reflecting on herself as a survivor. She wrote in her personal account titled Miminari (in English, ‘Ringing in ears’), published in 1962, that she had printed the collection “with the intention to mourn those who had died instantly and those who died later, and to comfort those who survived and were grieving and suffering.”
Ms. Shoda was 34 when she experienced the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. She was injured in the bombing at her home in the area of Hirano-machi (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), 1.7 kilometers from the hypocenter, and later fled to the Shoda family’s mountain cottage in the village of Ono (in present-day Hatsukaichi City). At the cottage, she welcomed in the wounded and cared for them while listening to their harrowing experiences. Since before the war, she had been writing and submitting poems to magazines, expressing what she saw and heard in the form of tanka poems.
In 1946, Ms. Shoda took her poetry to Suiko Sugiura, a Tokyo-based poet under whom she would study. Ms. Sugiura contributed a foreword to Ms. Shoda’s collection of poems and offered her encouragement. In the foreword, she praised Ms. Shoda’s poems for describing “the situation by consistently looking straight and staring intently at the subject at hand.”
However, the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ) had issued a press code to censor the media in September 1945, directing, “There shall be no false or destructive criticism of the Allied Powers.” Publications or reports about the atomic bombings that could lead to criticism of the U.S. military were thus restricted.
With small number of copies, evades censorship
The poetry collection Sange vividly conveys the cruelty of the atomic bombing. It is thought that the collection was able to evade censorship because only small numbers had been printed at the prison. Ms. Shoda wrote in Miminari that it was a “secret publication.” She criticized the situation that forced her in that way to publish her tanka poems, which described the “reality” of the atomic bombing. She added in the same account, “Obvious is that what is not in the interest of the powerful at the time and hits them where it hurts is deemed unacceptable.”
In that same year, 1947, Yasuo Yamamoto, a poet and an employee at the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper who died in 1983 at the age of 80, also published a collection of poems titled Reiun (‘Beautiful clouds’). Mr. Yamamoto’s second son had died a sudden death in 1944, and his oldest son, Masumi, had died in the atomic bombing the following year. Masumi was 13 at the time and a first-year student at Hiroshima First Middle School (present-day Kokutaiji High School). Reiun is a collection of poems about Mr. Yamamoto’s experiences and feelings.
“That voice is Masumi’s, isn’t it? Unbelievable how you could bear such deep wounds.” Masumi was working on the demolition of buildings in the city center on August 6, 1945, and had returned home with severe burns over his entire body, according to Mr. Yamamoto’s personal account contained in the compilation Hoshi wa Miteiru (‘The stars are watching’), published in 1954. That night, Masumi had quietly asked, “Is there really a Pure Land (a Buddhist concept of heaven)?” before breathing his last.
“I put my hand on your forehead and its warmth has gone. My child, my child, your life has already ended.” He decided to publish the collection of poems as an “offering to the spirit of my child,” as he wrote in the afterword of the account. After spending several months busily preparing the paper and other arrangements, he published the poems describing how the violent separation of parent and child by the atomic bombing was etched in his memory.
(Originally published on January 31, 2025)
