Rivers
1963 was also the year that The Japan Council Against A- and H-Bombs (Gensuikyō), the most influential anti-nuclear organization, lost credibility as it fractured over Cold War political infighting. Tsuchiya recalls that, on the day Rivers debuted, right-wingers drove through Hiroshima shouting from bullhorns, as if to mock what appeared to be the demise of the anti-nuclear movement, while 6,000 riot police patrolled the city.
Determined to create a play meaningful to college students who demanded a movement that could overcome the disfunctions of Gensuikyō, as well as in response to the tumultuous Vietnam War era, Tsuchiya produced a second and then a third version of the play in 1964 & 1965. Each revision expressed slightly more hope in its depiction of the Our Poems community of passionate activists & poets. For Tsuchiya’s fourth and final version of Rivers in 1972, the playwright elaborated on his motives for reviving the play: “I vividly remember how electrifying it was at the 1965 production to see members of the audience get up from their seats, put on their antiwar sashes, grab their flags, and head directly from the theater to the peace march.” (1) By 1972, local citizen involvement in the annual August 6 peace ceremony had dropped and tourism became the city’s focus; some argued that only hibakusha had the authority to speak about the bomb.
Put off by the flood of A-bomb elegies and A-bomb neurosis, ubiquitous prayers for peace, and resignation at the nuclear age, Tsuchiya advocated a return to the origins of the peace movement. For him, that was the fiery days of the Our Poems circle; the astounding power of a modest book like Atom Bomb Poetry; the unapologetic celebration of the working class on the journal covers; the courageous, at times reckless, political commitment of young people marching & passing out handbills in defiance of police orders; and the orphaned hibakusha for whom poetry became a space to face the pain of loss and war, but also to speak up against injustice.