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Daisaku Ikeda -
The Poet
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Daisaku Ikeda is an avid and prolific poet. He works in the traditional Japanese poetic forms, which compress feeling and observation into a few brief lines. At the same time, he works in an expansive, free meter form in which a single poem may consist of several hundred lines
Ikeda’s love of poetry and literature began in childhood. He counts Walt Whitman and Victor Hugo among his most important influences. He likes to celebrate, in oceanic cadences, the dignity of ordinary people’s lives.
He is committed to reviving poetry and the poetic spirit in public life; he has written poems for such figures as Rajiv Gandhi and Corazon Aquino. In this sense, poetry has been an integral part of his efforts at citizen diplomacy.
Ikeda has received several awards for his poetry.
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In 1981 he was awarded the title of "Poet Laureate" by the World Academy of Arts and Culture, India. He is also a nonresident member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters
Mr. Krishna Srinivas, in his book “Poet Ikeda – An Assessment of his Unique Poetry” writes
“Ikeda’s poetry is a confrontation of his whole being with Reality – a basic struggle of the soul, mind and body, to comprehend life, to love ‘order’ rather than ‘chaos’, and by will and insight, create communicable, verbal forms for the delight of mankind.”
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Music of Poetic Spirit
Flow on Forever (excerpts)
By Daisaku Ikeda
Poetry is life’s natural director
There we find beauty and tranquility.
The power to soar and create
And the joy that comes after having broken through
Great suffering
Poetry is the essence of humanity;
It is the rhythm and stirring of the univers.
What is the universe but an exquisite poem?
As is life;
As is history;
As is philosophy.
The sage poet Tagore says:
A poet’s task
Is to draw forth voices
That cannot yet be heard in the sky
And to rouse belief in dreams
That are not yet real
In order to close the curtain on a century of war
And bloodshed
People, groaning in the fin de siecle chaos
Are seeking a light.
It is poetry that will create a world
Where flowers of peace and culture bloom fragrantly
And clear the way for a majestic century of humanity
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