Reading Sports Poems and Lyrics for the 10th Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1932

Abstract

This paper examines the intersecting concerns of poetry with those of the popularization of sports and mass mobilization through media. The case study presented explores the representation of an international sporting event, namely the 10th Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1932, by specifically focusing on Olympics-themed poems, news articles featured in Japan’s newspapers and related events, as well as the ideals of and contradictions within the modern Olympic Games. Regarding poems, this study surveys tanka, haiku and poems featured in Japanese American dailies such as Rafu Simpo (Los Angeles Japanese Daily News), a poetry collection titled Kyoka(Torch) that is composed of Olympics-themed free-verse haiku by haiku poets on the West Coast of the United States and Hawaii and in Japan, and also the award-winning works for Asahi Shimbun’s fight-song lyric writing contest in support of the Japanese Olympic delegation. Also discussed are various contradictions within the modern Olympic Games, e.g., between amateurism and professionalism, internationalism and nationalism, individual competition and national competition, and equality in sports and racial or ethnic discrimination, as they are mirrored in the lyrics.

Keywords

• Olympic Games of Los Angeles in 1932
• poem
• haiku
• Japanese Americans
• representation of sports