Yonejiro Noguchi

Father of Isamu Noguchi, Yonejiro (Yone) Noguchi (1875-1947) was the first Japanese national to publish poetry in English. Yone Noguchi was born near Nagoya in 1875, and traveled to the United States in 1893.  He soon established a reputation among the Imagist poets of San Francisco, and his first book of poetry was published there in 1897, Seen and Unseen or, Monologues of a Homeless Snail. After traveling to Great Britain Yone Noguchi went to New York, where he was helped with his English by writer Leonie Gilmour, mother of Isamu Noguchi.  Yone left the United States before Isamu was born in November 1904, but Leonie Gilmour and their son joined him in Tokyo in 1906.  Their relationship did not last, and Isamu Noguchi saw little of his father before being sent to America in 1918.  The only other time that Isamu saw Yone Noguchi was during a seven-month visit to Japan in 1931.  In addition to his long career as a poet and Professor of English at Keio University in Tokyo, Yone Noguchi published a number of books on Japanese art. He died in Tokyo in July 1947.  One of Isamu Noguchi's first projects on visiting Japan in 1950 was the design of a memorial room and garden at Keio University in honor of his father.