Tozaburo Ono and Fujinagata shipyard —with a focus on meeting Koreans—

The Poet Tozaburo Ono was conscripted to work as an instructor at the Fujinagata Shipyard in Osaka in July 1943 for approximately one and a half years. While he oversaw the forced mobilization of Korean youth from various parts of Korea and helped them with their housing, Ono felt a deep connection with their humanity and remained proud of the longing and friendship he felt after the war. While Ono was often traumatized by what he witnessed and did during the war, his encounters with forcibly mobilized Koreans likely arose from feelings of remorse and self-loathing that influenced his poetic spirit, which he expressed as his will. Japanese research history has generally explained that Kim Sijong’s poetic world was formed under the influence of Ono’s “Poetics.” However, I believe that Ono’s own worldview and poetics helped him overcome the “pitch-black Japanese night where nothing could be seen” through his encounters with “forcibly mobilized Koreans,” those who were unable to speak for themselves. After Japan’s defeat in the war, Ono’s poetry began to fully represent the forcibly mobilized Koreans he met.