Chiori Miyagawa Do Poets Keep Secrets?  My earlier plays were
called “poetic,” and reviewers described them as “haiku plays,”
not knowing exactly what haiku was, or perhaps using it as a
metaphor for the mood of the genre, or perhaps they thought it
was appropriate because my name is Japanese.  Despite this, I
understand very little about contemporary poetry, and I have a
feeling that many poets do not mind not being understood.  When
one’s play goes up, unless it’s written completely
“naturalistically” in a mundane language and with a single
chronological plot, one must assume that a certain percentage of
the audience will go away not understanding or having
misunderstood the writer’s intention.  A playwright can also
take pleasure in thinking that people will go home taking with
them completely different aspects of the play when they leave
the theater.  I don’t know if this is how poets approach their
readers.  As I read the anonymous poems given to me to
contemplate, I could not help but think, would I wan