Tomino’s Hell: The Cursed Japanese Poem
An excerpt of the cursed poem, Tomino's Hell
According to the legend of Tomino’s Hell, if you read the poem aloud you will become cursed.
The Legend of the Cursed Poem: Tomino’s Hell
Tomino was a young boy living in Japan in the early 1900s. He reportedly lived his life with a severe physical disability that confined him to a wheelchair.
He enjoyed writing poetry as a way of helping him cope with the overwhelming emotions he had connected to his disability.
One day Tomino composed a particularly grisly poem and his parents were upset. Tomino's parents were anything but pleased. This reaction was not surprising given Japan's tendency for strict cultural norms, and the fact that the poem dove into some pretty intense details.
To discipline him for his chilling verse, Tomino's parents confined him to their basement without food. In time, due to the harsh conditions of the damp and frigid cellar, Tomino tragically passed away from bronchitis.
The legend goes that Tomino's spirit lingered within his disturbing poetry. Anyone who dares to recite his poem out loud risks invoking a curse upon themselves, causing bad fortune and despair.
Victims of the Curse of Tomino’s Hell
The curse of Tomino's Hell Poem became famous when people began to suffer unfortunate events after reading the poem aloud.
In 1974, a movie was released called "To Die in the Countryside". It was written and directed by a man named Terayama Shuji. He got a lot of ideas from Tomino's Hell Poem for his film. People started saying that he died because of the poem.
There were also rumors throughout Japan about some college kids dying after they read the poem.
The legend spread, claiming that if you read the poem aloud you could have a bad fall, lose your voice forever, get really sick suddenly, or even have a car crash.
Back in the 1980s in Japan, it became fashionable to record friends while they read the poem aloud. This fad took off and it was said that reading the poem aloud didn't usually cause any problems.
It appears that the curse has an unpredictable nature. It could even be part of a mysterious pattern that we don't fully understand yet. These days in Japan, even the older and wiser folk avoid talking about the poem, worried that it might bring them bad luck.
If you would like to try it for yourself, here is a version of Tomino’s Hell translated into english by David Bowles:
Tomino’s Hell
Elder sister vomits blood,
younger sister’s breathing fire
while sweet little Tomino
just spits up the jewels.
All alone does Tomino
go falling into that hell,
a hell of utter darkness,
without even flowers.
Is Tomino’s big sister
the one who whips him?
The purpose of the scourging
hangs dark in his mind.
Lashing and thrashing him, ah!
But never quite shattering.
One sure path to Avici,
the eternal hell.
Into that blackest of hells
guide him now, I pray—
to the golden sheep,
to the nightingale.
How much did he put
in that leather pouch
to prepare for his trek to
the eternal hell?
Spring is coming
to the valley, to the wood,
to the spiraling chasms
of the blackest hell.
The nightingale in her cage,
the sheep aboard the wagon,
and tears well up in the eyes
of sweet little Tomino.
Sing, o nightingale,
in the vast, misty forest—
he screams he only misses
his little sister.
His wailing desperation
echoes throughout hell—
a fox peony
opens its golden petals.
Down past the seven mountains
and seven rivers of hell—
the solitary journey
of sweet little Tomino.
If in this hell they be found,
may they then come to me, please,
those sharp spikes of punishment
from Needle Mountain.
Not just on some empty whim
Is flesh pierced with blood-red pins:
they serve as hellish signposts
for sweet little Tomino.
Who really wrote Tomino’s Hell?
After a little bit of online research we have found that Tomino’s Hell was actually written by a man named Saijō Yaso and published in 1919. Saijō Yaso was a popular children’s author at the time. He wrote Tomino’s hell during a difficult period in his life shortly after the passing of his father. Whether he intended to create a cursed poem or just express the negative emotions he was feeling is unknown.
Have you ever read Tomino’s Hell aloud? Did anything spooky happen? Tell us about it in the comments!
If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in other curses such as Rudolph Valentino’s cursed ring or the curse of the Passion of the Christ movie.
