Hino Sojo (
1901-
1956) was a 20th century
Japanese haiku poet and the first poet to rebel against the strict conservatism of
Takahama Kyoshi and his followers.
Sojo grew up in
Korea, where his father worked, but attended college in
Japan. He earned a law degree from
Kyoto University and joined an
Osaka insurance company in
1924. Eventually, he worked his way up to the prestigious position of
Kobe branch manager in
1945.
While still a teenager, his haiku was published in
Hototogisu, the organ of Kyoshi and his followers. But Sojo began chaff at the restrictive rules of the
Hototogisu school and started writing haiku on themes traditionally foreign to haiku. Topics such as young love, virginity, spinsters, and nudism shocked conservative readers, and especially shocking was his series of haiku depicting a bride and groom on their wedding night. He was "excommunicated" from the
Hototogisu group in
1936.
During
World War II, Sojo reduced his literary output as a result of wartime restrictions. He lost most of his possessions in a
1945 air raid. In
1946, he caught
pneumonia and
pleurisy and spent most of the rest of his life in his sickbed. He eventually lost the use of both his right lung and his right eye.
Ironically, his poetry towards the end of his life was actually very traditional. Critics believe his later work is much better than his younger work, which is interesting in historical terms in how it expanded the realm of haiku but not considered first rate in literary terms.