Soichi Furuta

Soichi Furuta was a Renassance man. He was equally at home discussing Plato, Bach and the folk singer Melanie as he was with his beloved subject of fascination and research, Piero della Francesca. An artist and poet, he also worked as a graphic design executive, art consultant, translator, professor and parent. What set him apart as a poet was his ability to write and translate into and out of two languages, English and Japanese. The British novelist, Shirley Hazzard, once said of Furuta, “It is always astonishing that a writer can work in two languages – but how much more so when one discovers a poet at work in two contrasting tongues.”

Soichi was the second of three children born in Los Angeles to Junzo, a poet and businssman, and Yae Furuta. He spent his childhood years in Japan, where he attended the elite Matsumoto High School. His classmates included the famed novelists Morio Kita and Tsuji Kunio, whose work he later translated into English. Accompanied by his younger brother, Gyo, Soichi left for Los Angeles in 1948 and initially found worked at Loyola University. He graduated from U.C.L.A. with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. To pay his way through school, he did part-time work. One story he was fond of telling happened while working as a houseboy for a wealthy family. Soichi heard the husband refer to his wife as “honey.” Soichi wasn’t as fluent in English then, so he copied him and innocently referred to her as “honey,” thinking that was the proper way of addressing a woman. He got fired on the spot because she thought he was coming on to her. He also served in the Army, working with the Army Corps of Engineers, at Fort Ord on the Monterey Bay in California. He then moved to New York City where he joined the creative design and packaging consulting firm, Stuart & Gunn. He later became president, and the firm was renamed Stuart, Gunn and Furuta. He designed packaging for major brands such as Hershey’s, Nestle, Michelob, Breck, and Vicks. At the same time, he taught a graduate course in design at Herbert Lehman College of the City University of New York.

A true romantic, Furuta met his future wife, Misao, through a mutual introduction from their respective families. He was in the U.S.; she was in Tokyo. They corresponded through aerograms. When they finally met for the first time face to face, Soichi said she was even more beautiful than he had imagined. They got married in Tokyo in 1958. In 1960, Misao, a floral designer, gave birth to their son, Yoshiya.

Soichi penned roughly a dozen books in both English and Japanese. Those works ranged from poetry such as to breathe, translations such as Chieko's Sky by Kotaro Takamura, and his autobiographical memoir, Shi to Jiyu to America to, (Poetry and Freedom and America). He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his book of poetry, Montefeltro the Hawk Nose. Soichi also served as an adjunct professor of literature at St Andrews Presbyterian College in North Carolina and as president of the Haiku Society of New York.

They resided in New York City for four decades with a main home in the suburb of White Plains and an apartment in midtown Manhattan. Often donning a turtleneck and a brown wool tweed jacket, he and his wife loved attending Chamber Music Society concerts with Columbia University’s professor of Japanese literature, Donald Keene, followed by dinner and a discussion. On Sundays, they attended mass at a Catholic church in Tarrytown, followed by a visit to their local bakery and then brunch at home.

Soichi had a gentle, self-deprecating sense of humor. A close family friend, Ruri Kawashima, Tokyo representative at the Japan Society, recalls that Soichi once told her mischievously that he would declare himself a poet when asked for his profession during jury duty interviews. He never got called to a case. He loved traveling throughout Japan and Europ and he loved getting off the beaten path and surrender to the joys of serendipity.

He retired in the Atlanta, Georgia suburb of Woodstock to be closer to Yoshiya and his family. In his later years, he suffered a stroke and developed dementia. He enjoyed taking joy rides and marveled at the beauty of nature that the South offered. On Wednesday, November 30th, 2011, he was admitted to the emergency room of Northside Hospital in Canton, Georgia with severe abdominal pain associated with intestinal ischemia. He passed away Friday, December 2nd at 12:07 pm from complications that led to multiple organ failure. He is survived by his ever patient wife, Misao, his son, Yoshiya, a telecom consultant, and his grandson, Makoto, all in greater Atlanta, and his sister, June Katayama, in San Francisco and Gyo in Morioka, Japan.

Arrangements under the direction of Woodstock Funeral Home, Woodstock, GA.