Beyond Home and City "The Nameplate" by Ishigaki Rin

Japanese poetry evolved from human emotions. The origins of Japanese poetry are considered to be some type of scream or cry that expresses human feelings. These utterances evolved into songs for religious rites and ceremonial gatherings. However, due to the lack of a written language in ancient Japan, those songs have been forgotten.

(Japanese Version)

自分の住むところには

自分で表札を出すにかぎる。

自分の寝泊まりする場所に

他人がかけてくれる表札は

いりもろくなことはない。

病院へ入院したら

病室の名札には石垣りん様と

様が付いた。

旅館に泊まっても

部屋の外に名前は出ないが

やがて焼場のかんにはいると

とじた扉の上に

石垣りん殿と札が下がるだろう

そのとき私はこばめるか？

様も

殿も

付いてはいけない

、

自分の住む所には

自分の手で表札をかけるに限る。

精神の在り場所も

ハタから表札をかけられてはならない

石垣りん

それでよい。

(English Version)

It is imperative that I put my nameplate by myself

On the door of the place where I live.

It is always terrible when someone else places my nameplate

At the entrance of the place where I lodge.

When I was hospitalized

My nameplate at the entrance of my room read: Ms. Ishigaki Rin.

"Ms." was added to my name.

When I stay at an inn

No nameplate will be put outside of my room.

But soon I will enter into a crematory

And a nameplate will be placed above its closed door:

It will read Ishigaki Rin, Esq.

How can I refuse such a plate at that moment?

Neither "Ms." nor "Esq."

Should be added to my name.

It is imperative that I put my nameplate by myself

On the door of the place where I live.

I should also not let someone else place for me

The nameplate for the place where my soul is.

A plate that simply reads Ishigaki Rin

Is the best one.

"The Nameplate" symbolises the beginning of Ishigaki's professional poetry career, although it is not her first poem; rather, it illustrates one of her literary venture's conclusions. Rin Ishigaki was born in 1920. She began working at the age of 15, after graduating from a higher elementary school. She worked for the Industrial Bank of Japan for 40 years until retiring at the age of 55. 

This poem has received such much praise that some critics believe Ishigaki Rin was born just to write it. She composed it when she was forty-eight years old, in 1968. Her second poetry anthology, which included this one, was released the same year (titled Nameplate and Other Poems) and helped her establish herself as one of the most well-known contemporary writers.

It is commonly stated that the poem's topic is articulated in the last four lines: The poet says that her spiritual identity should not be defined by others; rather, she should be the one to select and express her own identity, which identifies her as a simple self without socialising or honorific labels. Home, hospital, and crematorium are symbols of the concreteness of the location where her spirit may be placed. The hospital and cremation are examples of "awful" locations where her nameplate is chosen and placed by someone else, however in "the place where she lives" in her everyday life, she sets her own nameplate; it is a place of her own and a symbolic space where her soul resides.

The poet's clean and solid attitude toward life (she lives with her simple and bare self) and her strong personality are clearly displayed in this straightforward and eloquent poem (she does not pretend to be someone other than her natural self). She insisted on her "female" identity in the sense that women sometimes live without a title or social respect, and seldom have the opportunity to display their own nameplates at their front doors.

However, Ishigaki subsequently said that she hesitated to use "mo" rather than "wa" to topicalize the "place of her spirit" in the poem's closing words. Her hesitancy reflects the physical substance of the environment in which she lives; that is, her "home" is more than just a metaphor for her "soul." The location mentioned in the lyrics, "I should also not allow someone else put for me/the nameplate for the spot where my soul is," is chosen as another example of a possible area she may be in, comparable to other locations such as home, hospital, and crematory.

An explanatory word choice here (lit. "also the area where my mind/spirit lives") is almost redundant to the poem's message on the aforementioned locations: The inclusion of "mo (also)" helps to justify the lines' relevance.