Page:Tayama Katai and His Novel Entitled Futon (Reece).pdf/39

 It was about 1885 when Katai started to send poems composed in Chinese to the magazine, or. Katai writes about in, or.

"About that time [1833–35] I attended the elementary school at Kanrin [Gumma Prefecture] where I learned Chinese. Studying Chinese was regarded as more important at that time than nowadays. Therefore, I learned to compose Chinese poems . ..

As in the case of all contributors, when I saw my poems in the magazine [], I was very proud. I showed my poems in the magazine to everyone. I was interested in composing poems and was permitted to buy the magazine by my family who said it was better to spend by money in this way than for some other useless purposes, even though my family was so poor that they could barely afford the two pennies for one copy of the magazine. This magazine could be regarded as becoming my sole consolation and moral support. I looked forward to the publication of each issue of the magazine and I was disappointed when my poem was not printed; however, generally speaking my compositions were printed in the magazine and I was flattered."

At seventeen, he started to study under Matsuura Tatsuo, a disciple of the Keien school of. Katai later affectionately recalls his teacher Matsuura in his memoirs. Katai learned from Matsuura the most important attitude of a poet for composing poems, the precept of