Poet Tendo Taijin

Tendo Taijin (Oriental mystic poet, Reciter, Writer)
Tendo Taijin has been dedicated to the art of vocalization for more than 60 years.
In 1997, he was invited to participate in the 7th Medellín International Poetry Festival (Colombia), and since then, he has been invited to participate in 30 international poetry festivals around the world until 2025
On March 21, 2003, he gave the only Japanese solo performance of “UNIVERSAL VOICE” in Verona de Arena, Italy.
In October 2006, he founded “Art Performance Projet La Voix des Poètes” to train the voice of Japanese poets.
He started the “Projiet”, a series of vocal training sessions for Japanese poets every 3 days, and by September 30, 2025, he will have performed 2395 times, all of which he has attended and continues to perform.
He has published 12 books of poetry from 1981 to 2023.

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The Divine Doctor of the Voice

Hide the secret power in “the resounding voice.”
A flurry of cherry blossoms deep in the night.
In things that cannot be seen, “the voice resounds.”

Tatara Otodo Tomodo Tomodo Tatara Otodo Otodo Tatara
Tomodo Tomodo Tatara Tatara Otodo Tomodo Tatara Otodo
Tomodo Tatara Otodo Otodo Tatara Tomodo Tomod Tatara

Listen to the reverberating vowels and consonants in the sky—
The “remembrance of the voice” crying in words reborn in closed hearts.

Otodo Tomodo Tatara Tatara Otodo Tomodo Otodo Tatara
Tatara Otodo Tomodo Otodo Tatara Otodo Tomodo Tatara
Otodo Otodo Tomodo Otodo Tomodo Tatara Tatara Tatara

Someone recalls a memory in the melody of a colorful voice.
The wind cries in the dark, the hint of a scent floats by, having been released.

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On One Kind of “Truth”　　　

On this small watery planet, how many people
Are searching for the Truth, are continuing to search,
And is there anyone among them who can say
“Any Truth you find will not be the only Truth”?

All people, each individually, alone, and by themselves-
Why does the “Truth” of more than 6.6billion people
continue to be ignored by Heaven,
While time slips idly by, simply passing away?

Transcending the color of skin or ethnicity, making borders disappear,
Sacrificing national profit,
Even though progress is slow, walking hand in hand,
Moving slowly forward- Who is preventing this?

Though the century changes, the confusion persists;
The gods we trust in our hearts-though we continue to praise them loudly,
Hunger and strife do not disappear,
And nowhere can the light of hope be seen. Why not?

In this world, though there are more representatives for gods
than the number of ethnicities,
If we cannot go beyond all conflict,
If we cannot save lives from hunger,
When “Light” of Truth can possibly shine?

Shall I ask it? When is the time of hope?
Standing before those who are starving and dying daily,
can anyone save them with weapons or words?
It is but a single person who asks, the power of the spirit of only one:

Where are they, those who can save us now?

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Homage to Ezra Pound:
On the 25th Anniversary of His Death (1997)

A very rare man who was able to be a “poet,” only through existing.

Ezra Pound.

In order to comprehend your profound silence, many years were required.
But as for the world that surely left you behind, now, we are placed within a world of never-ending tumult and confusion.

It cannot be compared with the limitless and silent world that you reached at last on your journey, having seen through everything and left it all behind.

Ezra Pound.

The many who worship you learn anew that your resounding voice fills them with vim and vigor and encourages them to stand up.

In the lecture “Ezra Pound in Italy: From the Pisan Cantos,” all could see and feel your expression and your stance, that of a great poet, no, of a man worthy of great respect.

At the “Recital of Poems form the South, in Fukuoka” (November 1, 1989),
I first read my poem “A Ring for Ezra Pound.”
On returning to Tokyo, I learned that, by some strange coincidence, that was the 17th anniversary of your death.

After fourteen years of silence, I created my second anthology of poems, An Azure Ring for Ezra Pound, which, through the introduction of poet Yasuo Fujitomi, I was able to send to Pound’s daughter, Mary de Rachewitz, who lives in Merano, Italy.
The date on which it reached her was October 30, 1995.
And, again, what a miracle, Ezra! For that was your birthday!

Now, I am in Lausanne (May 6, 1997).
I constantly think of you, why I do not know, after having been introduced to Jean Genoud for the first time by the young genius of a sculptor, Yves Dana.

In the touch of the cool breeze coming from Lake Leman, which stretches before me,
I can hear the resounding echoes of your voice.

Ezra Pound!

Just once, I had always wanted to hear your strong and powerful voice.

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Why?

If I strain my ears, the memory of Maurice comes back to life
In the sound of the waves slapping the shore.

Why?

Although I believe it is possible,
There are some things I cannot remember clearly.

Why is that?

This is what I always ask myself,
But still they remain unclear.

To make them clear—

What does that mean?
I always ask myself this, too.
No one knows for certain
The path they should follow.

When will I know?

Surely, there is no one
Who asks this question?

There is no one who asks this question.

Why?

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The Great Spirit, Kitchi Manitou No.185

O Lord of all creatures unseen and hidden upon Mother Earth,

Kitchi Manitou,

The creatures who walk in all corners of the earth, holding their breath,
Their forms invisible, they dart from mountain to mountain, without exchanging words, without breathing, making no sound as they run.

Moving the earth, while moving the earth, they cross the Source,

Feeling the warmth upon the soles of their feet, they walk, they walk, the creatures.
Reaching the end, they stop,
They see the shadow of Manitou; Manitou, Manitou, the Lord within Manitou, the First Lord.

They cross the frozen Bering Strait, and travel down the mountain ridges from north to south, becoming like a car of fire,
Carrying with them their symbol, the comma-shaped tomoe,
Independently from the tribe who descended to Cape Horn.
They live and breathed there on the lands, those who walked coming together,
And long did they rule, until others came and caused them to disappear.

The invisible power, man.

Kitchi Manitou,
The spirit within all things,
The force within all things related,
The force possessed by all things, whether told or not told, the power of all things.
Manitou is the Source of all Sound.
The leaders rule, over and over, and taking an invisible hand, Manitou tries to tear apart
The earth, moving it with earthquakes, and the gods of the dead visit, coming together in that land.
They try to see the power possessed by Manitou, and think of nothing in the darkness.
There is no one who has seen Manitou; there is no one who will come.
Those who have felt his presence sing of in songs, or leave it behind in tales told by story-tellers,
Story tellers who pass it on from mouth to mouth, riding on songs, beating out rhythms.
The flow of Manitou.
He does not walk straight ahead, he emerges himself in subterranean waters, he walks within the earth, and is transformed into an earth-spider.
Manitou appears in the Black Forest near Vienna.

Tonight, there is no one to communicate with the people gathered here,
So the manitous come together, the manitous tell their tales,
Coming through the tears in the nets behind the Lords of Creation.
There are no words, there are no tales, for there are those who put them together but also those who despise them,
And among those who despise them, invisible manitous are in charge.
Those who walk taking and losing nothing, neither breaking anything, O Manitou,
They evoke Kitchi Manitou, Kitchi Manitou behind them.

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Kitchi Manitou!

Kitchi Manitou, who brings together the spirits who have slept without once waking up,
Manitou, Lord over all evil spirits, Manitou gradually begins to show his power.
The year 2001.
Things stand up, there is commotion, the heart begins to spit up truth.
Kitchi Manitou incites the hearts of those looking and searching for something;
The things of darkness are all consigned to oblivion in the light of day.
Kitchi Manitou has begun to act.
In 1983, in Obihiro, for the first time, Manitou raised his voice.
Running along the ridge from mountain to mountain, Kitchi Manitou.
His words became sounds, causing hearts to stop beating, stopping his enemies in their tracks, trying to show himself.
The power of Kitchi Manitou has finally entered the leaves of words.
In 2001,
Kitchi Manitou began to move, and when darkness is dispelled by the light of day,
Consigned within the darkness of oblivion, many shall writhe in agony.

Kitchi Manitou once again begins to move, violently, and starts to walk.
In 2013. From Babylon Iraq.

Kitchi Manitou!
Kitchi Manitou!
Kitchi Manitou!

Thank you Babylon Iraq.

*Kitchee Manitou, also spelled Kitchi-Manitou, is the Creator God of the Algonquian nations of North America. The Anishinaabe (Ojibwa or Chippewa) people, Longfellow’s source, spell it Gichi-Manidoo, and the term means “Great Spirit.”

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The Appearance of a Philosopher Named Corona

All of a sudden the novel coronavirus gushed out
In the twinkling of an eye it swept over the world.

On this dangerous planet of water
Many humans are standing on two legs, running in the pursuit of profits,
Transcending race and language religion gender nationality
Traveling around the world with a smug look of self-satisfaction
And continuing to destroy nature.

The philosopher named Corona poses a new question to the world.

How long can humans survive on this dangerous water planet?

They stockpile a large number of nuclear weapons and
Boast of their advantage in military strength if they go to battle with other nations;

For those humans born within the twenty-first century
The only protection is sanitizing hands, gargling, and wearing masks.
If the present world has to rely upon a vaccine
How far has humanity evolved?

One can only laugh . . .

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To Amma, Guardian God of the Dogon People

I wonder if it can break through this clear blue sky—
Whatever was shining in the ancient firmament?
What was it that could be seen?

The sunken eyes of the elders here,
Wordless as ever,
From the top of a cliff, see something that seems to have survived. . . .

Encouraged by Cameroon poets
When I was invited into the center of this open space,
A transparent invitation arrived from the Sirian star system.

Turning around, way off in the distance,
Houses and wriggling people can be seen on the earth, like grains of rice,
Before the eyes, the elders sit in the center of a few dozen tribesmen who surround them.

This is Africa, the Republic of Mali,
The Sangha region, Bandiagara, atop the escarpment,
Where the Dogon people live.

Borrowing wooden staves from poets who had come from Rome,
With bended knees, three times they strike the stone slab,
From a low position, like crawling on the earth,
Their voices begin to resound: “A-a-a- – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – a-h!

The ancient world of the Dogon I learned about
In Marcel Griaule’s Pale Fox—
These are the people I have dreamed of seeing—the Dogon!

Even now, somewhere upon this earth,
Can anything still be passed down
About the distant star system of Sirius?

The voice of an Asian poet—who?—his voice continues to resound,
Without a single clearing of his throat, he turns toward the elders—
As he turns this time to face their guardian god, Amma,
A gust of cool wind caresses his cheeks.
Where is this? He turns around and soon intones:

“Kitchee Manitou!”
“Kitchee Manitou!”
“Kitchee Manitou!” three times offering his voice.*

Three years later, a Moroni poet who saw him off at Senegal’s Dakar airport,
With a gentle smile, told him: “At that time, the Dogon elders
Perfectly comprehended what you said.”

It was a world in which one could converse in Divine words,
When languages from distant lands could be understood with ease, like before the time of the Tower of Babel.

Translated by Stephen Comee
on Mt. Koya, Japan’s sacred peak

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Now, in Gaza, Palestine . .

The landscape of Gaza, devastated by bombings, is captured in a single photo—
Children screaming, blood streaming from their heads.

Leaders keep pressing buttons with the detachment of a video game,
Seeking the extermination of all Palestinians,
Madmen wishing for the erasure of an entire nation.
And the president of a great power who supports them— a businessman
Acting only in pursuit of his own gain.

No matter how long the genocide continues,
An endless war marks but a milestone in the eternal recurrence of history.

Even if there were as many representatives of God as there are races on Earth,
If not one of them can stop this genocide alone,
Then this water-covered planet will surely bring down its own iron hammer.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, typhoons,
Volcanic eruptions, torrential rains, heavy snow, storm surges, avalanches, landslides—
Every kind of natural disaster will be unleashed
Upon the arrogant humans who have gone too far.

Children who survived
After losing their families to indiscriminate bombings—
Their deep sorrow and bitter resentment
Will rise as a great swell,
Crossing borders, religions, and races,
To torment all the slaughterers
For as long as they live.

The smell of blood, the scent of burning flesh,
Released from the earth,
Riding invisible winds,
Now continue to spread across the world.

Even if blood-stained Gaza, soaked in blood and resentment,
Is turned into a resort town,
The countless bodiless spirits
Of the mercilessly slain
Will wander still—a summer getaway painted in blood.

Resentment and rage—these are the weapons of the innocent.

Civilization has continued to advance,
Yet humans have failed to learn from history.
Now, dictators dream of vast empires,
Their ambitions insatiable,
Spanning century after century.

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Tendo Taijin is a poet whose life’s work cannot be separated from the sound of the human voice and its mysterious capacity to hold, transmit, and transform meaning. To read him silently is one experience, but to hear him is to step into a ritual, a spiritual summoning where language is not only thought but vibration, rhythm, and breath. Over more than sixty years, he has made poetry a living force, traveling across continents, bringing Japanese poetic sensibility into dialogue with the world, and demonstrating that the voice itself is an instrument of communion. From his landmark invitation to the Medellín International Poetry Festival in 1997, which initiated his long journey through thirty international festivals until 2025, to his unprecedented solo performance of “UNIVERSAL VOICE” at Verona’s ancient Arena in 2003, Tendo has consistently sought to expand poetry beyond the page. His founding of “Art Performance Projet La Voix des Poètes” in 2006 marked a new phase of commitment: not merely reciting his own words, but training a generation of poets to reclaim the power of the spoken word. The discipline he maintains — performing every three days without interruption, nearly 2,400 times by late 2025 — is a testament to his belief that poetry is a lifelong practice, a form of meditation, and a path toward spiritual refinement.

Tendo’s poems, whether meditative, mystical, or politically charged, are never content with mere observation. They are incantations calling forth the hidden resonances of the universe. In works like The Divine Doctor of the Voice, sound becomes sacred, almost shamanic, with syllables repeating like prayer beads, evoking cosmic rhythms. In On One Kind of “Truth”, he wrestles with the moral weight of existence, asking why the individual truths of billions remain unheard, and why hunger, war, and despair continue even as humanity claims progress. His homage to Ezra Pound is at once personal and universal, tracing a spiritual lineage of poets whose voices outlast time, filling new generations with strength. His meditations on Kitchi Manitou and Amma, guardian deities of Indigenous and African cosmologies, reveal his openness to the sacred traditions of the world, seeking a unifying spirit that transcends national or linguistic boundaries. And when he turns to the contemporary moment to Gaza, to the coronavirus pandemic, his voice is urgent, prophetic, warning of the hubris of humankind and the retribution of the earth.

Across his twelve books of poetry, published between 1981 and 2023, Tendo Taijin has given the world not only a body of written work but also an ongoing performance of life itself as poetry. His words insist that poetry is not a passive art but a force that shakes hearts awake, confronts power, and calls for transformation. He is a mystic, but not one who withdraws from the world. He plunges into its suffering and beauty, giving it forms through voice, letting his breath carry the weight of history, memory, and hope. To encounter Tendo Taijin is to be reminded that poetry can still be an act of invocation, a way to summon both gods and the better angels of our humanity, and to leave behind, in sound and silence, a trace of something eternal.