中学校の読み聞かせ、今日は谷川俊太郎の「GO」をやってみました。私がまだ学生の時に渋谷の山手教会下に『ジャンジャン』という小さなライブスタジオがあってそこで谷川俊太郎さんや私の大好きな故はせみつこさんら４人ぐらいが黒のタートルネック姿で自由に詩の朗読をしていらっしゃいました。その時、みんなで掛け合いで読んでいた一つが「GO」です。読むというより皆本を持たずに自由に動きながら詩の朗読をなさっていたのがいかにも新鮮で若い私には印象的でした。
今回、中学生の読み聞かせで何を読もうかと考えていたところふと思いついたのが「さあ、いこう どこへいこう」ではじまるこの詩。静かに聞いてくれる中一の生徒たちですが、生徒たちにも詩に参加してもらうことを狙ってこの「GO」を選びました。原文は使われている人物名がフルシチョフとか古く、また「煙草吸いながら」など今どきではないので、谷川さんには失礼ながら、少し言葉を替えさせてもらいました。
果たして生徒がどれだけリズムに乗って参加してくれるか正直心配で、本番に入る前に「皆の協力がないとこの詩は終わりません」といってちょっと練習。生徒たちに身近なゲームやスポーツなど言葉に出しやすいものを入れ込んで、次々に言ってもらうところが６か所ほどあります。
結果はまだまだ不消化なところもありましたが、受け身なばかりの生徒たちの参加を試みたことはよかったのでは。終わりの頃には身を乗り出して言おうとする生徒たちもいて一番喜んだのはやはり私です。詩って口に出したほうが絶対楽しいってこと、少し伝わっていればいいんですが。（写真は多賀中HPから）
I went to Junior High School for story telling. The book I chose was a poem named "GO" by Shuntaro Tanikawa instead of a story book.
When I was a college student, I sometimes went to Live studio in Shibuya. There, poets Tanikawa and my favorite poem reader, Mitsuko Hase and other members read poems and all wore black turtlenecks. "GO '' was one of the poems they were reading chasing after each other without holding a book. I remember them because the reading style was quite new and impressive to me.
When I was thinking about a book for Junior High School students, "Go" came to mind. They usually listen to my reading very well but this time I wanted them to participate in reading. In the original poem many names were very old such as Khrushchev in Soviet, or some phrases were not updated such as "while smoking", so I needed to change them so the younger generation could understand easily the situation.
Well, I was still worried about whether students would follow my reading and participate well. I said to the students that without their cooperation, I can not finish this poem and I made time to rehearse some parts with them. I replaced the old words and phrases with the new ones such as names of the games or sports which seems more familiar to students.
As a result, some parts were still difficult to unite with all but I think it was a nice challenge for them to participate in the poem with the rhythm. The most excited person was of course me. Reading poems aloud is much more fun than reading silently. I hope they enjoyed it.
