For Japan’s star poet Tanikawa, it’s always fun, not work, at 90

‘For me, the Japanese language is the ground. Like a plant, I place my roots, drink in the nutrients of the Japanese language, sprouting leaves, flowers and bearing fruit,’ says Tanikawa, acclaimed Japanese poet and translator. Photo: AP

Shuntaro Tanikawa used to think poems descended like an inspiration from the heavens. As he grew older - he is now 90 - Tanikawa sees poems as welling up from the ground.

The poems still come to him, a word or fragments of lines, as he wakes up in the morning. What inspires the words comes from outside. The poetry comes from deep within.