Post by Doji Tsukiko on Jun 24, 2018 0:52:10 GMT
While life settles down somewhat after the Bon Festival, Tsukiko begins spending less and less time in Magistrate quarters. Duties are attended to in her smiling, efficient fashion, but she is simply not there, otherwise. Sometimes days pass without her presence, only for her to abruptly appear to go about business and entertain guests per usual.
She is spending nearly all her time sequestered away at the House of Foreign Stories, in the arms of her muse: poetry. She is single minded, caught on a phrase, an image, a meaning she cannot quite put to parchment yet. Those nights burn just as long as the nights in which she is overcome with words in words and Magda knows by now to keep more ink and paper on hand. Sometimes she will ask for Magda or Ging to keep her company and play the koto, or a children's game, for distraction. Once she has most of the house enthralled watching a game of menko between her and two other geisha.
(About week after the festival) The unthinkable happens. Tsukiko's smile gradually turns into a grimace, and then- a frown. It is shocking on a face that is always serene or smiling. She looks irritated and tosses the piece she has been working on aside, and stands up, clearly frustrated.
After dressing to blend in, she grabs a few of her finished, unillustrated pieces to take with her, and bidding Magda a fond farewell, makes her way from Teardrop Island to her transcriptionists with instructions to drop off the copies to her distributor in the merchant warehouse district once complete.
They have worked together before, and she pays them well enough. A couple pieces of her work have started to surface already. It takes time to break into a new market. She is patient. She is ambitious. Once Akito-chan sends back some illustrated pieces, that will pick up the pace a little. Art does literally catch the eye.
She turns her direction toward Oroku-san's residence in hope she could catch him at home and available. She laughs. She wants his assistance on a few matters. He's been around and maneuvering somewhat longer than she has, and his experience and knowledge - and connections- are quite valuable. There is the matter of simply desiring to know more about one's friends, which may or may not be pressing- honestly she doesn't care for politics, and it baffles and amuses her that someone put her in this position- but more interesting to her is the matter of the (likelihood of the existence of the) woodpress... Getting his help in tracking down its location and its operators while keeping the whole thing quiet would be ideal before she decides what to do with it, if anything. She would also quite enjoy the opportunity to observe Oroku further.
She spends the remainder of her time mostly as she has before: in the throes of inspiration. She is inordinately pleased with a select few pieces and sets them aside, gently tapping them now and again reverently. These will be saved for her life's work. Her masterpiece. She carefully copies everything she has in her notebooks. She isn't paranoid, exactly, and this sort of art isn't outlawed, but it is hers. She needs to protect it. Two weeks after the festival, she carefully bundles up some of her pieces, including a couple of her prized ones, writes a quick letter and entrusts them to the post. She is anxious for Akito to return them with illustrations, and idly wonders if she knows anything about the increasing feud between their clans. She'd prefer if Akito would just take her up on her offer to visit... it would make business much more efficient. Long distance is, after all, a bit awkward.
**Tsukiko specializes in “passionate love” poetry. Her best works are especially refined and subtle in their imagery; some evoke the tenuous and temporary nature of life which makes it both bittersweet and intense. Her use of wordplay provides another layer to her pieces, including the sound of the words, hidden meaning, double entendre, etc. Though she doesn’t sign her work with her name, her mark is a Sagaribana flower (preferably amongst whatever Akito has illustrated.) The sagaribana is a flowering tree that blooms only at night during the summer. She prefers to remain anonymous and let the poetry speak for itself.
This mark and the linguistic techniques she uses are unique- she has a distinctive voice.
Tsukiko only signs the work-whether poetry or sketches- she gives in person, which is typically much tamer or frivolous. (She is known for providing "first night" poetry services for those who cannot write it themselves as well however.)
Similar historical figures would be Ono no Komachi, Izumi Shikibu (famous Japanese Heian period waka poets)... e e cummings for someone more contemporary.
Poetry examples:
Without end
Do I think of you and so
Come to me at night.
For on the path of dreams at least,
There's no one to disapprove!
Ono no Komachi
In this world of ours
A hue called ‘Love’ [<~~in this line there is a play on words. The word translated as "hue" can also mean "passion"]
Appears not at all, yet
Deeply the breast is stained
By it.
Izumi Shikibu
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh … And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
e.e.cummings (this is my fav eec poem)
She is spending nearly all her time sequestered away at the House of Foreign Stories, in the arms of her muse: poetry. She is single minded, caught on a phrase, an image, a meaning she cannot quite put to parchment yet. Those nights burn just as long as the nights in which she is overcome with words in words and Magda knows by now to keep more ink and paper on hand. Sometimes she will ask for Magda or Ging to keep her company and play the koto, or a children's game, for distraction. Once she has most of the house enthralled watching a game of menko between her and two other geisha.
(About week after the festival) The unthinkable happens. Tsukiko's smile gradually turns into a grimace, and then- a frown. It is shocking on a face that is always serene or smiling. She looks irritated and tosses the piece she has been working on aside, and stands up, clearly frustrated.
After dressing to blend in, she grabs a few of her finished, unillustrated pieces to take with her, and bidding Magda a fond farewell, makes her way from Teardrop Island to her transcriptionists with instructions to drop off the copies to her distributor in the merchant warehouse district once complete.
They have worked together before, and she pays them well enough. A couple pieces of her work have started to surface already. It takes time to break into a new market. She is patient. She is ambitious. Once Akito-chan sends back some illustrated pieces, that will pick up the pace a little. Art does literally catch the eye.
She turns her direction toward Oroku-san's residence in hope she could catch him at home and available. She laughs. She wants his assistance on a few matters. He's been around and maneuvering somewhat longer than she has, and his experience and knowledge - and connections- are quite valuable. There is the matter of simply desiring to know more about one's friends, which may or may not be pressing- honestly she doesn't care for politics, and it baffles and amuses her that someone put her in this position- but more interesting to her is the matter of the (likelihood of the existence of the) woodpress... Getting his help in tracking down its location and its operators while keeping the whole thing quiet would be ideal before she decides what to do with it, if anything. She would also quite enjoy the opportunity to observe Oroku further.
She spends the remainder of her time mostly as she has before: in the throes of inspiration. She is inordinately pleased with a select few pieces and sets them aside, gently tapping them now and again reverently. These will be saved for her life's work. Her masterpiece. She carefully copies everything she has in her notebooks. She isn't paranoid, exactly, and this sort of art isn't outlawed, but it is hers. She needs to protect it. Two weeks after the festival, she carefully bundles up some of her pieces, including a couple of her prized ones, writes a quick letter and entrusts them to the post. She is anxious for Akito to return them with illustrations, and idly wonders if she knows anything about the increasing feud between their clans. She'd prefer if Akito would just take her up on her offer to visit... it would make business much more efficient. Long distance is, after all, a bit awkward.
**Tsukiko specializes in “passionate love” poetry. Her best works are especially refined and subtle in their imagery; some evoke the tenuous and temporary nature of life which makes it both bittersweet and intense. Her use of wordplay provides another layer to her pieces, including the sound of the words, hidden meaning, double entendre, etc. Though she doesn’t sign her work with her name, her mark is a Sagaribana flower (preferably amongst whatever Akito has illustrated.) The sagaribana is a flowering tree that blooms only at night during the summer. She prefers to remain anonymous and let the poetry speak for itself.
This mark and the linguistic techniques she uses are unique- she has a distinctive voice.
Tsukiko only signs the work-whether poetry or sketches- she gives in person, which is typically much tamer or frivolous. (She is known for providing "first night" poetry services for those who cannot write it themselves as well however.)
Similar historical figures would be Ono no Komachi, Izumi Shikibu (famous Japanese Heian period waka poets)... e e cummings for someone more contemporary.
Poetry examples:
Without end
Do I think of you and so
Come to me at night.
For on the path of dreams at least,
There's no one to disapprove!
Ono no Komachi
In this world of ours
A hue called ‘Love’ [<~~in this line there is a play on words. The word translated as "hue" can also mean "passion"]
Appears not at all, yet
Deeply the breast is stained
By it.
Izumi Shikibu
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh … And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
e.e.cummings (this is my fav eec poem)