Jetliner by Naoshi Koriyama

“Jetliner”

Now he takes his mark

At the farthest end of the runway

Looking straight ahead, eager, intense

With his sharp eyes shining

He takes a deep, deep breath

With his powerful lungs

Expanding his massive chest

His burning heart beating like thunders

Then… after a few… tense moments… of pondering

He roars at his utmost

And slowly beings to job

Kicking the dark earth hard

And now he begins to run

Kicking the dark earth harder

Then he dashes, dashes like mad, like mad

Howling, shouting, screaming, and roaring

Then with a most violent kick

He shakes off the earth’s pull

Softly lifting himself into the air

Soaring higher and higher and higher still

Piercing the sea of clouds

Up into the chandelier of stars

-Naoshi Koriyama

In this poem, Naoshi Koriyama portrays a large and powerful Jetliner as a simple runner or long jumper. It has been disputed if Naoshi is really speaking of a long jumper, and not a runner, in this analysis I hope to prove that Naoshi is really speaking of a long jumper starting his run and lunging himself into the air. I will also break down each individual stanza and present its Imagery and compare the Jetliner to the Long jumper.

Now he takes his mark

At the farthest end of the runway

Looking straight ahead, eager, intense

With his sharp eyes shining

In this stanza he shows the runner’s thoughts and intense few moments before he begins to run. The runner waits impatiently, looking at his mark a few meters away, waiting for his moment to lunge into the air. His concentration is focused completely on the sand. Nothing will faze him as he stares intently on the sand.

The Jet sits waiting on the end of the runway, waiting for clearance to take off. The pilots wait and follow through their routine last minute pre-flight checks. The plane sits, ready to take off and begin its flight.

Naoshi Koriyama alternates between his descriptions of a Man waiting to run to a Plane waiting to take off, but never fully describes the runner as a Jetliner. Each individual line can be taken for face value or as a metaphor for a massive Jetliner. The word runway creates the sense of flight, for describing the area a long jumper needs to accelerate to jump into the air, and the stretch of pavement used for a Jetliner to reach a speed fast enough to rise into the air. But in using a word that could be thought of in both contexts, it reassures the author’s idea of comparing two very different things.

He takes a deep, deep breath

With his powerful lungs

Expanding his massive chest

His burning heart beating like thunders

This stanza shows the physical reactions before the long jumper takes off running,