SOURCE: "Nishiwaki Junzaburō (1894-1982)," in his Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of The Modern Era, Vol. 2, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984, pp. 323-35.

In the following excerpt, Keene provides an overview of Nishiwaki's poetic career in terms of the European poetic tradition.

Nishiwaki has been acclaimed as the founder and teacher of a modern Japanese poetry that is part of the modern poetry of the world. A typical evaluation by an admirer states: "Nishiwaki Junzaburō played a decisive role in the fate of the Japanese modern poem. Together with Rilke, Valéry, and Eliot, he is one of four great poets who represent the twentieth century." He has probably exercised the greatest influence of any Japanese poet on the post-1945 generation. Some critics have claimed that Japanese poetry died at the end of the Taishō era in 1926, but many more believe that a great resurgence in Japanese poetry...