Thursday, June 7, 2012

One Hundred Leaves - A Collection of One Hundred Tanka Poems

From the moment I picked up One Hundred Leaves, a translation of “one hundred poems from one hundred Japanese poets,” I was enamored. The lovely photo on the cover, even the smooth feel in my hands drew me in, but the best part waited inside.

Its analysis of the Japanese poetry now commonly referred to as tanka, includes a description of how visual images, pivot and pillow words, nature, season and time of day, and overall experience were handled during the time frame from when these poems were written, the 7th to the 13th century.

Turn the page to another world and discover a piece of Japanese artwork, each poem in its original Japanese form with a pronunciation guide, Blue Flute’s translation, poem author name with birth and death dates, and literal notes regarding the translation.

For any poetry lover or fan of Japanese culture, this is a beautiful book to add to a collection.





One Hundred Leaves: A new annotated translation of the Hyakunin Isshu [Paperback] Blue Flute (Author)



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3 comments:

  1. This is great Linda. My oldest just spent 1.5 yrs in Japan (Jon is black belt Judo and got his Sensei training) and my youngest is heading there for a year after she graduates her B.A. CMNS. (She and her boyfriend both have a couple of semesters of Japanese language and he practices Aikido). I love buying them Japanese culture books because they have such a fascination with the culture.

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  2. I like tanka and this sounds like a good guide to finding out more about the form!

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