waka: Poems of thirty-one syllables arranged in five lines in an alternating pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. The word waka also serves as a general term for classical Japanese poetry in all its forms, except renga (linked verse) and haiku, as opposed to foreign verse, especially Chinese poetry. Waka poetry has influenced all aspects of Japanese traditional culture from aesthetics to literature, from Noh to the tea ceremony, and scenes from waka poems have been widely depicted in art.
From the Kokinshū (905) onwards, twenty-one imperial waka anthologies (chokusenshū) were officially commissioned and selections of poems by most of the poets in the One Hundred Poets were included in them. See also the Introduction (here) and Gosenshū, Goshūishū, Kin’yōshū, Senzaishū, Shikashū, Shin-chokusenshū, Shin-kokinshū and Shūishū. These were in contrast to the private anthologies that the individual poets compiled themselves.
zōtōka (poetic exchanges): Exchanges of poems (usually via letters) were known as zōtōka (literally, message and reply poems). In the Heian world, romances began with zōtōka, so it was essential to be able to compose poetry. As lovers would often not actually see each other until the night that they made love for the first time, they formed impressions of each other based on the poems, the calligraphy and the paper on which they were written, which was often of exquisite design. It was mandatory to send replies to poems received, as the exchange of poems was an essential component of etiquette, and members of the nobility spent time honing their poetic skills. Exchanges of poems could go back and forth any number of times. Some of the poems in the One Hundred Poets were originally part of such poetic exchanges but they were included in the collection individually, without context. Recontextualizing existing poems in new poetry collections was common practice and readers who were already familiar with the poems enjoyed appreciating them in new settings. See poem 62. By contrast ‘solo’ compositions in which poets described their feelings without a specific audience in mind are known as dokueika and were read to oneself.
Acknowledgements
For their help with all aspects of the translation, I am indebted to many people. I thank Kaori (Lily) Harada for her help with the translation and the Commentary and my editor, Jessica Harrison, and Kate Parker for her dazzlingly brilliant and meticulous copy-editing. I thank Simon Lewis for introducing me to Penguin and Alexander Smith for his insightful suggestions for translating difficult wordplay. For editorial direction I thank Professor Yasuaki Watanabe and his brilliant student Hikari Okamoto, who helped greatly with the final revisions. I thank Donald Keene for reading the original manuscript and writing the foreword to the first edition. I also thank Janet Lowe and Stephen Payton for their careful reading of the proofs. And I thank Robert Campbell and the faculty of the National Institute of Japanese Literature for their kind support of this book and all my literary translation endeavours.
To my readers, I thank former ambassadors John Neary and Tim Hitchens, my friend of old, Colm Rowan, and Philip Harries, who all brought to their reading of the text outstanding editing skills and a deep knowledge of and sensitivity to poetry. I also thank my staff, Shizuka Sado, Shizuko Goshima, Kosuke Ogasawara and Keita Katayama, for their unfailing support.
Without kind patronage the translation could not have been completed: I thank the Suntory Foundation for their translation grants. Michiko, Maiko and Takao Sato of Kotoku-in, Kamakura, and Norimasa and Rika Nishida are patrons of this and other of my literary translations. Dr Hiroharu Matsuda, his wife and the Matsuda family have supported me for thirty years. And Yayoi Hirayama has provided every kindness. Above all I thank Yuichi Mitsuyama, whose love and pursuit of the truth is an abiding source of inspiration.
I thank my wonderful and inspiring interns Yuka Hattori, Kotaro Hirose, Senju Hanahara, Katsuki Nagakubo and last but not least, Masashi Takeuchi.
I also owe an enormous debt to my beloved friend the late Eileen Kato, who gave many valuable suggestions at every stage of the original translation. No one would be happier than her that this translation of this seminal work is being published by Penguin and disseminated throughout the world.
THE BEGINNING
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
A previous version of this translation was published in the USA by Columbia University Press 2008
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Cover: Yasushi Yokoiyama, Fujitsu Ni Homen (In a Little While Things Will Get Much Better). Translator’s collection
ISBN: 978-0-141-39594-4
COMMENTARY: CHAPTER 94
fn1 From Po Chü-i: Selected Poems, translated by Burton Watson. Copyright © 2000 Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of Columbia University Press.
One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each Page 18