MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--Distraught over his repeated episodes of Tourette syndrome and feelings of helplessness after the March 11 disaster, Yohei Suto feared he would never pen another poem again.
MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--Distraught over his repeated episodes of Tourette syndrome and feelings of helplessness after the March 11 disaster, Yohei Suto feared he would never pen another poem again.But Suto, 33, never gave up.He is finally back at work and a new book of his poetry is set to be published on Nov. 28.Suto lives in Minami-Sanriku, a fishing community in Miyagi Prefecture that was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.The new book includes a poem titled "20,195-nin" (20,195 people), which reads in part, "Amid sharp rubble/ I have to keep walking ... ."It took ages for the winner of the prestigious Chuya Nakahara award to pick up his pen again.Suto had felt helpless because he was unable to join in reconstruction efforts due to his disorder.At one point, Suto thought he would have been better off if he had perished in the tsunami that swept coastal areas of northeastern Japan.The book is titled "Anata ga Saigo no Saigo made Ikiyo to Mukidashi de Tachimukatta kara" (Since you stood up straight to live right up to the end). "You" refers to his uncle, Akira Yamada, who died in the disaster at age 57. Yamada was caught by tidal waves triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in Ishinomaki in the same prefecture.Yamada was found on a mountainside wearing a life vest, suggesting he had been rescued at some point but still was unable to reach safety.Suto was 10 years old when he developed Tourette syndrome, a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by multiple facial tics such as winking.Falling sick while Suto was working in Tokyo, he returned home at age 23. It was Yamada who encouraged him saying, "Come on! Everything starts now."After the quake, Suto was struck by Yamada's tenacity to cling to life right up until the end.Suto started writing poetry when he was 25.His first book of poems, the privately published "Michinoku Teppoten" (Gun Store Michinoku), won the 2007 Chuya Nakahara award for contemporary poetry.When the earthquake struck on March 11, Suto was in Sendai.He returned home to Minami-Sanriku a week later, overjoyed to find out that his parents were safe and his house had narrowly been spared by the tsunami.He and his parents hugged each other and cried.Suto was touched to realize that he had people who were pleased to see him alive. But real suffering was around the corner.Because of anthrophobia, a fear of people, he could not mingle with others helping with reconstruction efforts.Suto was miserable."An (incomplete) person like me should have died first," he told his family, tears streaming down his face.In the face of such adversity, Suto found his muse again and created 20 poems.In a poem dedicated to Yamada, Suto wrote: "Since you bravely stood up straight to live right up to the end/ I can say with pride even in such a world/ that I want to help people get out of agony."Hidden under the book title is Suto's resolution: "I want to be a voice for people who, like me, cannot adapt to society."The book will be published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Publishers on Nov. 28.