DE/RECONSTRUCTING POETRY
):
Pessimists's interpretation:
Bitter temple, Life
Speech grown sharp.
Measured torture.
Mother's interpretation:
Life temple opening
Measured pulse grows rythmically
Sharp birth
Grow, Life!
Writer's interpretation: (with additional meaning
of "on tap" [as in "draft" (beer)]
for the Kanji "
.")
Words on tap
to speak of life
to grow.
When used in compounds (combinations of two or more Kanji) the possible meanings/connotations/associations of many Kanji are often greatly extended. See, for example, the combination of the Kanji for "clear/bright" and "white" to mean "clarity" in Japanese (or "understand" in Cantonese Chinese) given on the another page (see below for more examples of compounds). In many cases the meaning of the compound may not be apparent from the meanings given for the Kanji as an independent unit. Following is a listing of many of these meanings/connotations/associations used for the Kanji associated with the construction of the Kanji for "Poetry."
The main source for this additional material is THE KODANSHA KANJI LEARNER'S DICTIONARY, Jack Halpern, editor in chief, Tokyo, Kodansha International, 1999. Kenneth Henshall (cited above) is also a source, as is THE CONCISE JAPANESE DICTIONARY, Samuel E. Martin, editor, Rutland and Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle, 1994.
poem, poetry.
word, say, saying, speak, speech
(e.g. , 
= "silence"
["without speech"]) talk, declare.
temple.
mouth, opening, hole, speak,
speech, , number of persons/population (e.g. 
).
sharp, bitter, pungent, spicy,
painful, hard to bear, strict.
measure, dimensions, inch,
a bit of, very little, brief.
life, be born, give birth to,produce,
spring up, student, livelihood, health, welfare, exist, raw, crude,
fresh, impudence, happen, draft (as in beer on tap).
Remember
(see above) that although this Kanji appears to be present as
the top-right element in , in
terms of origins the top-right element actually comes from (immediately above).
But appearances may be good enough for a poet, thus: earth,
soil, ground, earthen, territory, local, Saturday (earthday).
It probably the case that the right hand element ("temple") is often primarily a phonetic (rather than semantic) element in its original, Chinese form, representing the allied sounds Romanized in pinyin as si, shi, chi or zhi. As a character itself, meaning "temple" (and anciently meaning "court"--of a ruler) it is Romanized as si. With the "sun" radical on the left it is Romanized as shi and means "season" or "hour"; with the "heart" radical on the left it is romanized as shi and means "rely on"; with the "person" radical on the left it is also Romanized as shi and means "attendant" or "serve"; with the "mountain" radical on the left it is Romanized as zhi and means"stand tall"; and with the "hand" radical on the left it is Romanized as chi and means "hold," "grasp," "support" or "manage" (see Harbaugh 1998: 95-96). Though in these cases its primary purpose is to provide a phonetic clue for the pronounciation of the character in which it appears, we can't say that it may not ALSO (secondarily, and perhaps fortuitously, depending upon the probably unknown intent of the originator of the character for poetry) carry some semantic connotations such as "temple" or "feeling" or "rhythm." The point is that from a technical or academic point of view it is probably pointless to break any character element such as "temple" further into its constituent semantic elements. But our de-reconstruction is not an academic or technical exercise. So ... with that in mind ... carry on as you will!
background design
from Hiroshima Castle roof