Gloria Komai

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Gloria Mari-Ko Komai
Born1922
Kensington, London
Died2008
Eastbourne, East Sussex
Occupation(s)Poet, translator
Parent
RelativesH. G. Wells (godfather)

Gloria Mari-Ko Komai (1922 – 2008)[1][2] was a British poet and translator[3] of Japanese descent[4] who fellow writer and translator James Kirkup described as being 'the first poet [he] knew to introduce Japanese sensibility into her work'.[4]

Early life[edit]

Gloria Mari-Ko Komai was the daughter of Japanese artist and poet Gonnoské Komai[5][6][7] and classical dancer[8] Norah Howard Morgan (b. 1896),[9] the daughter of a Sheffield optician.[10] She had a sister named Fuji-Ko.[5] Gloria's godfather was H. G. Wells,[11] and her sister's John Galsworthy.[8] In 1939, she told the Sheffield Daily Telegraph that she was writing a novel to help her ill father.[8] The paper noted that Komai spoke Japanese and French in addition to English, and had never been to school - having been privately educated at home.[8]

Poetry[edit]

In his autobiography, I, of all people, James Kirkup remembers Gloria Komai as one of the poets who attended readings organised by the Progressive League's Contemporary Poetry and Music Circle in London's Ethical Church.[4] Komai's poems appeared in Time and Tide, Poetry Quarterly, and other literary journals.[12] Some of these were published in the collection Never Despair of Gardens (1947).[12] Other collections included In Wake of Wind (1949), The Meditations [of] Marcus Aurelius: a cycle of sonnets (1952), and Mountains of the Moon (1953).[13] All of these were published by Sylvan Press.[13] Komai's poem 'Earth Pushes up the Frosted Window' was included in Little Reviews Anthology 1949 (ed. Denys Val Baker).[14]

In 1954, Komai contributed translations of some poems by France Prešeren to what the editors described as 'a pioneer literary collaboration between two nations which are widely separated by geography and history... for the first time English and Slovene literary colleagues have made a common effort to present to the English-speaking world a selection from the poems by the greatest Slovene national poet, France Prešeren.'[15]

In 1950, in a review of her poems in Poetry Quarterly, Komai was described as 'a poet of unusual sensibility.' The reviewer wrote that 'the images she summons forth to celebrate the seasons have an almost three-dimensional nature'.[16]

In 2020, Gloria Komai was included in Apocalypse: An Anthology.[1] A review of the collection in The Fortnightly Review described Komai as among those 'unremembered' poets of the 1930s-50s who had been 'excitedly discovered in comments on this book', alongside Antonia White, Freda Laughton, and Sheila Legge.[17]

Death[edit]

Gloria Komai died in Eastbourne in 2008.[2]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Apocalypse : an anthology. James Keery, Carcanet Press. Manchester. 2020. ISBN 978-1-78410-818-2. OCLC 1206442342.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. ^ a b "England & Wales Deaths 2007-2020". FindMyPast. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  3. ^ Kadic, Ante (1960). "Review of The Parnassus of a Small Nation, An Anthology of Slovene Lyrics.; Servo-Croatian Prose and Verse.; Bulgarian Prose and Verse". American Slavic and East European Review. 19 (1): 137–141. doi:10.2307/3000898. ISSN 1049-7544. JSTOR 3000898.
  4. ^ a b c Kirkup, James (1988). I, of all people : an autobiography of youth. Internet Archive. New York : St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-02342-3.
  5. ^ a b "The Far East in the West End". Daily Mirror. 6 July 1935. p. 14.
  6. ^ "Gonnoske Komai, the Japanese poet at home". TopFoto. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  7. ^ "No Plays of Japan". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. 28 April 1933. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  8. ^ a b c d "Writing Novel to Aid Father". Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 11 March 1939.
  9. ^ "1939 Register". FindMyPast. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  10. ^ "1911 Census For England & Wales". FindMyPast. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  11. ^ "Japan in London". Birmingham Daily Gazette. 14 February 1925.
  12. ^ a b "Never Despair of Gardens". Eastern World, Volumes 2-3. 1948.
  13. ^ a b "Komai, Gloria. [WorldCat.org]". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  14. ^ Baker, Denys Val, ed. (1949). Little Reviews Anthology 1949. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.
  15. ^ Prešeren, France (1954). Selection of poems. Internet Archive. Oxford : B. Blackwell.
  16. ^ "Reviews". Poetry Quarterly. 12: 124. 1950.
  17. ^ "Peter Riley on the apocalyptics". The Fortnightly Review. 13 December 2020. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
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