was a Japanese haiku poet and essayist.
Early life and career
Born in Tokyo, Japan, she moved at the age of six with her family to Tochigi Prefecture to flee the wartime B-29 aerial bombing of Tokyo. She spent the rest of her childhood in the Tochigi countryside, returning to Tokyo when she entered Tokyo Woman's Christian University, majoring in psychology. After graduation, she was hired by Hakuhodo, an advertising firm where she worked until retirement at age 60, rising to a senior management position.
Haiku
Momoko Kuroda was exposed to haiku at an early age through her mother, who was a member of a local haiku group. Upon her mother's encouragement, she sought out Yamaguchi Seison (1892–1988) and asked to join his haiku group when she was in university. After graduating university, she stopped composing haiku for a period of nearly ten years, then returned to the art and to Seison's haiku group in 1968. That same year, she began what became her trademark haiku pilgrimages, the first of which was to Japan's famous cherry blossoms and spanned 28 years. In 2012, she completed a 30-year endeavor leading haiku pilgrimages to Japan's four main pilgrimage routes: The Shikoku, Saigoku, Bandõ, and Chichibu circuits. In 1990, after the death of her mentor Seison, she created a nationwide haiku organization, AOI (藍生), which she led, and Aoi, a haiku magazine.
Kuroda's first haiku collection, ki no isu (The Wooden Chair) published in 1981, received the Best Modern Woman Haiku Poet award and the Haiku Poets Association Best New Talent award. Her fifth haiku collection, Nikkõ Gekkõ (Sunlight, Moonlight) earned her the prestigious 2011 Dakotsu prize. She was a haiku selector for the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
Kuroda did not speak or write in English. Abigail Friedman, a United States diplomat based in Tokyo who attended Kuroda's haiku groups, was inspired to write a book about her experience, The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan (2006). Friedman published 100 of Kuroda's haikus in English translation in the book I Wait for the Moon: 100 Haiku of Momoko Kuroda (2014).
Death
Kuroda died from a brain haemorrhage on 13 March 2023, at the age of 84.
Selected works
Haiku collections
Ki no Isu. Bokuyōsha, 1981
Mizu no Tobira. Bokuyōsha, 1983
Ichiboku Issō. Kashinsha, 1995
Kaka Sōjō. Kadokawa Shoten, 2005
Nikkō Gekkō. Kadokawa, 2010
Ginga Sanga. Kadokawa, 2013
Other works
Anata no haiku zukuri kigo no aru kurashi. Shogakukan, 1986
Kyõ kara hajimeru haiku. Shogakukan, 1992
Haiku, hajimete mimasenka. Rippū Shobō, 1997
Kuroda momoko saijiki. Rippū Shobō, 1997
Haiku to deau. Shogakukan, 1997
Hajimete no haiku zukuri 5-7-5 no tanoshimi. Shogakukan, 1997
Hiroshige Edo meisho ginkō. Shogakukan, 1997
"Oku no hosomichi" o Yuku. Shogakukan, 1997 (with photography by Ueda Shōji) Katengecchi. Rippū Shobō, 2001 Shōgen: Shōwa no haiku. Two volumes. Kadokawa, 2002 Kigo no kioku. Hakusuisha, 2003 Nuno no saijiki. Hakusuisha, 2003 Shikoku henro ginkō. Chūō Kōron Shinsha, 2003 Kaneko Tōta yōjōkun. Hakusuisha, 2005 Haiku rettō nihon sumizumi gin’yū. Iizuka Shoten, 2005 Haiku no tamatebako. Iizuka Shoten, 2008 Kurashi no saijiki. Iwanami Shoten, 2011 Tegami saijiki. Hakusuisha, 2013 Kataru Tōta waga haiku jinsei. Iwanami Shoten, 2014