Poetry Collection
A poet's unsold first collection drifts from bookstores to secondhand stalls and finally to a dusty storeroom in Hokkaido. Akutagawa follows its quietly ironic transformation, while the book's dreamy refrain acquires an unexpected new life among ripening apples.
His poetry collection had appeared in bookstores about three years before. He had given his paper-bound first book of poems the title *Dreaming*. He took the name from the lyric poem that opened the volume.
Dreaming, dreaming,
All the day long, dreaming…
He had used this refrain after every stanza of the poem.
Copies of his poetry collection stood in many bookstores. But no one bought them. No one?—No, not quite “no one.” A dozen or so copies also appeared in the secondhand bookshops of Kanda. Although the colophon said “List price: one yen,” the secondhand price was thirty sen, or even twenty-five.
About a year later, his poetry collection, still brand-new, began appearing on the street stalls of Ginza. This time the sign read “Thirty sen, firm.” Passersby would sometimes open the paper covers and glance at the lyric poem at the front. (Fortunately or unfortunately, the pages of his collection had been left uncut.) Yet a copy was very rarely sold. Little by little the paper grew old, and the spine of the temporary binding wore away.
Dreaming, dreaming,
All the day long, dreaming…
About three years later, a train carried 986 copies of *Dreaming* to Hokkaido, leaving a trail of faint smoke behind it.
The 986 copies of *Dreaming* were stacked amid the dust in a certain storeroom in Sapporo. But they did not remain there long. In the hands of women, his poetry collection began turning into countless paper bags. Across those bags, the lines of his lyric poem were printed sideways or upside down.
Dreaming, dreaming,
All the day long, dreaming…
About half a month later, those paper bags began appearing here and there beneath the leaves of apple orchards. How many days have passed since then? The countless apples adorning the orchards now lie inside those bags—sweetening naturally in the sunlight filtered through the paper, still green and giving off the faintest fragrance.
Dreaming, dreaming,
All the day long, dreaming…
—April 1925—