1. Persona Exhibition
According to the first issue of Kyushu-Ha's journal, the following persona exhibition isdescribed at the beginning of the "History of the Group. From November 2 to 4, 1956,
large paintings by Yasuyuki Ishibashi, Yohji Kuroki, Yasushi Ochi, and Takami Sakurai
were exhibited on the wall of the main street on the west side of Fukuoka PrefecturalOffice.

As for poetry, the exhibition featured works by Keizo Amano, Taneo Harada,

Kenkichi Itabashi, Atsumi Kawaguchi, Mamoru Matano, Koji Orizaka, Akira Kagami, Shohei
Suzuki, Fumiki Takamatsu, and Iwao Tanaka. The group consisted of four painters whowere exhibiting at the Nika Group and ten poets living in Fukuoka City.This persona
exhibition was part of the prehistory of Kyushu-Ha, which was formed the following year. It
was one of the germs of the birth of Kyushu-Ha and a foreshadowing of the uniquecharacter of Kyushu-Ha as an art collective.
Before the Persona exhibition, in May 1954, Kenkichi Itabashi launched the poetry
magazine "Shika", the cover of which was drawn by Yohji Kuroki.The cover was drawn byYohji Kuroki. (Later, the cover was drawn by myself and Kenichiro Terada.)
In the poetry magazine "Kenkichi Itabashi and His Works" published in March 1983, Mr.
Teiji Kuroki wrote about holding the Pelsona exhibition, "The idea of a joint creative
exhibition of pictures and poems occurred to me, with Mr. Itabashi on the poet side and meon the painter side. We held a big ceremony on the street of the prefectural government
office under the title of "Pelsona Street Exhibition" and it was published in various
newspapers and magazines.
Now that Mr. Itabashi has passed away, there is no way to find out how he came up with
the idea for the PERSONA exhibition, naming it, and choosing the wall of the prefectural
government's West Street as the place to display it.
My guess is that the reason for the idea of the street poetry and painting exhibition and thelocation of the exhibition was that Mr. Itabashi was the head of the mining damage sectionof the prefecture at the time. Koji Orizaka, who organized the poets with Mr. Itabashi at thetime, said that he himself went to negotiate the use of the mural.
If anyone knows by whom the Persona exhibition is named, please let me know.
I saw the name of Taneo Harada, the founder of Kyushu Bungaku, among the 10 poets
who participated in the Persona exhibition.

I asked Hiroshi Nasu to confirm that he had often participated in street exhibitions that
seemed to be outrageous.He said that he had no memory of the work he had exhibited, butthat he remembered being invited by Mamoru Matano to participate. When I asked Mr.
Matano about this over the phone, he said that he did not have a clear memory, but if thatwas what the records said, there should be no mistake.
According to Mr. Nasu, Mr. Harada's poetry has always had a strong critical spirit, so it wasonly natural that he agreed to participate in the avant-garde street exhibition.
Of the artists who participated in the Persona exhibition, Mr. Sakurai also wrote poetry at
the time. He was a member of the "Poetry Department" with Mr. Eisuke Obata, whobecame a member of the Kyushu School when it was formed, and published his works inthe magazine.
Thus, even before the formation of Kyushu-Ha, there was a close personal relationshipbetween Kyushu-Ha and the local poets.This is still the case today, even after thedissolution of Kyushu-Ha. When we consider the relationship between the two groups interms of their works, it can be argued that although the two groups were very close in termsof the genre of poetry and painting, they kept to their own spheres and did not venture into
each other's works.
This seems to have remained the same even after the end of the Kyushu-ha movement,
except for a couple of exceptions, such as the fact that Mr. Matano, as a member of theKyushu-ha, was actively involved in the movement through his management and painting,
and was the main driving force of the movement.

For example, the only cooperation

between the two groups was in the binding of poetry books and poetry magazines.
There was no full-fledged production of poetry and painting books, nor was there any
discussion of painters' works or artists from the poets' side.