No. 30: Untitled
Crowded marketplace
Waves of bobbing heads roll in
Drowning all reason
...
第三十首 無題
雑踏の市
頭波押し寄せ
理性溺れけり
...
Dai sanjū-shu Mudai
Zattō no ichi
Atama nami oshiyose
Risei obore keri
— Dean Bowman
About the Work
Author's Note: This poem was written more than twenty years before publication, part of a student notebook from my days in Japan. When the notebook disappeared in 2017, this became one of the few survivors—most of my pre-2012 work has been lost to time.
Inspiration: The crowded marketplaces of late Showa and early Heisei Japan were overwhelming experiences. Endless crowds would engulf you the moment you entered, your body carried by the tidal current of a human sea.
Process: My memory of writing this has vanished with the notebook that birthed it. I suspect it was a spontaneous response to early culture shock after arriving in Kansai—a moment of overwhelm captured in the judgmental tone that time has softened into nostalgia.
Translation: The phrase 「頭波」 (atama nami—literally "head-waves") reimagines crowd motion as oceanic surges, while 「溺れけり」 (obore keri) uses classical verb conjugation to evoke irreversible submersion. Without seasonal language (kigo), the poem embraces modern haiku's flexibility, letting market chaos suggest a timeless human condition of being overwhelmed by collective experience.
Publication Details
Untitled (No. 30)
Genre: Haiku Poetry
Author: Dean Bowman
Publication: 50 Haikus
Volume & Issue: Volume 1, Issue 3
Date Published:
Language: ja, en
Format: Print
ISBN: 9781495926488
Dean Bowman
Dean Bowman
Dean Bowman