The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse

The Penguin Book of... (Penguin Classics)

by Anthony Thwaite (editor), Geoffrey Bownas (Introduction)

Poetry remains a living part of the culture of Japan today. The clichés of everyday speech are often to be traced to famous ancient poems, and the traditional forms of poetry are widely known and loved. The congenial attitude comes from a poetical history of about a millennium and a half. This classic collection of verse therefore contains poetry from the earliest, primitive period, through the Nara, Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi and Edo periods, ending with modern poetry from 1868 onwards, including the rising poets Tamura Ryuichi and Tanikawa Shuntaro.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: Poetry, Japan, Japanese Literature, Classics, Anthologies, Asia, Asian Literature

285 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 1964

About the author

Anthony Simon Thwaite, OBE, is an English poet and writer. He is married to the writer Ann Thwaite. He was awarded the OBE in 1992, for services to poetry. He was mainly brought up in Yorkshire and currently lives in Norfolk.
During World War II he stayed with relations in the United States. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath (1944–49) and subsequently read English at Christ Church, Oxford.
He taught at Tokyo University from 1955 and 1957, and for a year in 1985. He has worked for BBC Radio, the New Statesman as literary editor, and from 1973 to 1985 as editor of Encounter with Melvin J. Lasky. He is one of the literary executors of Philip Larkin, and the major editor of Larkin's work.

Reviews

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction, by Anthony Thwaite
Japanese Poetry and Japan's Poets, by Geoffrey Bownas
Further Reading

--The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse: From the Earliest Times to the Present

Notes

Appendices:
1. Glossary of Japan's Poetic Forms
2. Taste-words: The Japanese Aesthetic
3. Some Prosodic Techniques of the Japanese Poet
4. Glossary
5. Chronological Tables
6. Map: Japan

Index of Poets

[Eadweard · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book to pick up if you haven't any experience with japanese poetry. I've read quite a few of the poets and poems that are featured but it was still nice to read them again. The New Style Poetry section was specially enjoyable.



Some I liked:


PRINCE ŌTSU
Poem exchanged with Lady Ishikawa

In the dew dripping
On the broad-flanked hill,
Waiting for you
I stood dampened
By the dew on the hill.


LADY ISHIKAWA
Poem exchanged with Prince Ōtsu

Waiting for me
You were dampened.
O that I could
Be the dew dripping
On that broad-flanked hill.
----


My tangled hair
I shall not cut:
Your hand, my dearest,
Touched it as a pillow
--


Like the few ears salvaged
After deer and boar have plundered
Rice fields newly opened up,
My love is all shrivelled
--


The autumn moon
We saw last year
Shines again: but she
Who was with me then
The years separate for ever.
--


'Heaven and earth’ –
Only when their names
Become extinct
Would you and I
Meet no more.
--


As flowing water
Does not return,
As the wind that blows
Is never seen,
So, without a trace,
Being of this world,
My wife has left in death.
Spreading the lonely sleeves
Of the tattered clothes
She made for me to wear,
I must lie alone.
--


PRINCESS HIROKAWA

The grass of love would load
Seven high harvest carts.
Such grass grows tall, and grows
Heavy on my heart.


LADY HEGURI

A thousand years, you said,
As our hearts melted.
I look at the hand you held,
And the ache is hard to bear.
--



ŌTOMO YAKAMOCHI
Presented to Lady Ōtomo of Sakanoue’s elder daughter

To the pit of my heart I pine,
Not knowing what to say,
Not knowing what to do.
You and I, hands clasped,
That morning stood in the garden:
That night making our bed,
White sleeves intertwined, we slept.
O that it be so always.
--




Heian Period (794–1185)


MIBU TADAMINE

Since that parting
When she seemed as unfeeling
As the moon at morning,
Nothing so cruel
As the light of dawn.

When the wind blows,
The white clouds are cleft
By the peak. Is your heart,
Like them, so cold?
--




Kamakura and Muromachi Periods (1185–1603)


TAIRA TADANORI

The capital at Shiga –
Shiga of the rippling waves –
Lies now in ruins:
The mountain cherries
Stay as before.
-
Overtaken by the dark,
The shade beneath a tree
I make my inn;
And tonight my host
Shall be a flower.
--


PRIEST SAIGYŌ

Is it a shower of rain?
I thought as I listened
From my bed, just awake.
But it was falling leaves
Which could not stand the wind.
-
Every single thing
Changes and is changing
Always in this world.
Yet with the same light
The moon goes on shining.
--


FUJIWARA SHUNZEI (TOSHINARI)
In autumn, lodging at a temple near his wife’s grave

Even at midnight,
When I come so rarely,
The sad wind through the pines:
Must she hear it always
Beneath the moss?
-
Oh, this world of ours –
There is no way out!
With my heart in torment
I sought the mountain depths,
But even there the stag cries.
--


LADY SANUKI

The sleeve of my dress,
Like a rock in the open sea,
Unseen, unknown to man,
Even when the tide ebbs,
Is never for a moment dry.
--



MUROMACHI BALLADS

Rain beating down
On top of snow.
Add any more and my heart
Melts, melts, melts.
--


ARAKIDA MORITAKE
Fallen flower I see
Returning to its branch –
Ah! a butterfly.
--




Edo Period (1603–1868)



YASUHARA TEISHITSU

Oh! oh! is all I can say
For the cherries that grow
On Mount Yoshino
--


ENOMOTO KIKAKU

Harvest moon:
On the bamboo mat
Pine-tree shadows.
--


UEJIMA ONITSURA

They bloom and then
We look and then they
Fall and then...
--


MIURA CHORA

You watch – it’s clouded;
You don’t watch, and it’s clear –
When you view the moon.
--


ŌTOMO ŌEMARU

Fall on, frost!
After the chrysanthemum
No more flowers.
--



Senryū

A horse farts:
Four or five suffer
On the ferry-boat
-
The ladder-seller
Hears the cry ‘Swords drawn!’
And scrambles to the roof.
-
Judging from the pictures,
Hell looks the more
Interesting place.
-
Letting rip a fart –
It doesn’t make you laugh
When you live alone.
----




Modern Period (from 1868)


EMPEROR MEIJI
In my garden
Side by side
Native plants, foreign plants,
Growing together.
--


YOSANO AKIKO

You never touch
This soft skin
Surging with hot blood.
Are you not bored,
Expounding the Way?
-
Spring is short:
Why ever should it
Be thought immortal?
I grope for
My full breasts with my hands.
--


ISHIKAWA TAKUBOKU

Working, working.
Yet no joy in life,
Still staring emptily
At empty hands.
-
Today, my friends seemed
More a success than I.
So I bought flowers
And took them to
My wife, to make her happy.
--


TAKAHAMA KYOSHI
Autumn wind:
Everything I see
Is haiku
--


IIDA DAKOTSU

In the winter lamp,
Dead face not far
From the living face.
--


KAWABATA BŌSHA

Bright moonlight:
The wounds in the deep snow
Will not be hidden.
--


Modern Senryū


In the child’s homework
A word he doesn’t know –
Father’s face.
-
Found while spring-cleaning
But too precious to throw out,
The first love’s letters.
-
A famous horse,
Now, in the zoo,
Forgotten.
----



Shintaishi (‘New-Style Poetry')


HAGIWARA SAKUTARŌ
Sick face at the base of the earth

At the base of the earth, a face:
A sick and lonely face.
In the gloom at the base of the earth
Grass stalks slowly starting to shoot,
A rat’s nest beginning to sprout;
Tangled in the nest
Countless hairs quivering.
At the winter solstice,
From the sick, desolate earth
Slender bamboo roots sprouting green,
Starting to sprout.
So full of sadness,
So tender, so weak,
So full, full of sadness.
In the gloom at the base of the earth
A sick and lonely face.
--


MIKI ROFŪ
After the kiss

‘Are you asleep?’
‘No,’ you say.
Flowers in May
Flowering at noon.
In the lakeside grass
Under the sun,
‘I could close my eyes
And die here,’ you say.
--


HORIGUCHI DAIGAKU
Landscape

Curves of a woman’s body,
Swelling, undulating, tangled:
The triangle of a sun-baked island floating
In a beautiful soft sea of milk.
Lacklustre ferns growing luxuriantly:
Gentle curves flowing plumply in three undulations Across the heart of the island.
At the nub,
In the shadows of the trees grown rank in the valley,
The tapered roof of the headman’s house, now here, now out of sight;
Peach-pink tapering house, now here, now out of sight.
--


SAIJŌ YASO
The crow’s letter

I opened and read
The small red envelope
The mountain crow had brought:
‘On the night of the moon
The hills will blaze
Savage and red.’
I was going to reply,
When my eyes opened.
Ah yes, there it was:
A single red leaf.
--


MURANO SHIRŌ
Black song

From eyes, from ears,
Blackness pours;
Melted in the night,
Flesh gushing from my mouth.
What can it be,
This black song?
Here no dawn reaches:
A vacuum In the earth’s shade,
No tree, house, dog.
And here, a heart
That will not die,
That will not sleep,
Singing, singing.
Friends of the world,
Listen to its song,
Black song of peace.
--


TAKENAKA IKU
Stars

Over Japan there are stars.
Stars that stink like petrol
Stars that speak with foreign accents
Stars that rattle like old Fords
Stars the colour of Coca-Cola
Stars that hum like a fridge
Stars as coarse as tinned food
Stars cleaned with cotton wool and tweezers
And sterilized with formalin
Stars charged with radioactivity.
Among them, stars too swift for the eye
And stars circling on an eccentric orbit.
Deep down
They plunge to the base of the universe.
Over Japan there are stars.
On wintry nights –
Every night –
They stretch like a heavy chain.
--


KURODA SABURŌ
I’ve changed completely

I’ve changed completely
Yes I’m wearing the same tie as yesterday
I’m as poor as yesterday
As useless as yesterday
Even so I’ve changed completely.
Yes I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday
I’m as blind drunk as yesterday
As clumsy as yesterday
Even so I’ve changed completely.
Ah
Faced with all the half smiles and grins
Curled sneers and guffaws
I shut my eyes tight and stay still
And
Fluttering through me towards tomorrow
Goes a beautiful white butterfly.
--


TAMURA RYŪICHI
October poem

Crisis is part of me.
Beneath my smooth skin
Is a typhoon of savage passion.
On October’s Desolate shore a fresh corpse is thrown up. October is my empire.
My gentle hands control what is lost
My small eyes keep watch on what is melting
My soft ears listen to the silence of the dying.
Terror is part of me. In my rich bloodstream
Courses all-killing time. In October’s
Chilling sky a fresh famine shudders.
October is my empire.
My dead troops occupy every rain-sodden city
My dead patrol-plane circles the sky over
...aimless minds
My dead people sign their names for the dying.
--


IBARAGI NORIKO
The fruit

On a high branch
A big green fruit
A local lad slid up
Stretched his hand and fell back
What looked like fruit
Was a moss-covered skull.
Mindanao
Twenty-six years on
On a baby jungle tree branch
Caught by chance
The skull of a Japanese soldier killed in battle
Eye socket nostril
In the sturdy young tree
Grown vigorously.
In his lifetime
This face
Irreplaceable cherished
Surely some woman must have cared for it.
The fontanelles of the tiny temples
Who was the mother who had doted on them
Twining her fingers in his hair?
Who was the woman who had drawn him tenderly to her? If it had been me…
I broke off a year has passed
I took out the draft again
Unable to find a final line
More years have gone by.
If it had been me
In the end unable to produce a line to follow.
--


SHIRAISHI KAZUKO
Street

Dark street   seedy town
Raining a bit too cold
We wore raincoats we had a black umbrella
However much we signalled, the taxis didn’t stop
So we set off walking
Our bodies close, clinging
What kind of future did we face
As we walked, drenched to the skin?
Warm hotel
Bodies
Heated
But the words
And acts of our loving –
I cannot recall
A single one.
-
Pond

‘Go home,’ I said
‘Tonight I don’t want you, so
Go home,’ I said
Sniffling and sobbing
You went off
I have no place to go back to.
Your path as you went weeping from my heart
I traced again and again
Your tear stains
Spread across my body
To become a pond
And that pond engulfed my heart
That night I went to sleep.

[7jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading another collection of Japanese poems again… but this is a nice one. 700+ poems, from 3rd century to 20th (stopping at 1964, when this collection was first published). There’s of course tanka and haiku poems, but also poems in other styles; various themes. The part about poems after the introduction can be a little dull, so one might want to read it after reading the poems. The poems are grouped by time periods – and in the modern part, the poems are grouped further into their styles, so some authors have poems in more than one. At the end are notes, appendixes (poetry-related stuff, chronological tables, a map of Japan). At the contents page are short introductions of the authors, if possible.

‘Are you dancing in the Bon?’
‘Yes – because this year
There’s no babe in my belly
And I feel light as air.’
(from Wakayama)

Is it a shower of rain?
I thought as I listened
From my bed, just awake.
But it was falling leaves
Which could not stand the wind.
(Priest Saigyo)

Older ones have some anonymous poems, since some are general folk stuff: lullabies, children’s rhymes, poems for festivals, etc. Men, women, and children have written or used them. It seems women ‘take a pause’ after certain point in history, and come back in the modern age (they might just have been not included in some parts). I don’t know most of the named poets, though the works of Basho, Issa, and Shiki Masaoka I do know.

Glittering fragments
Ashen embers
Like a rippling panorama,
Burning red then dulled.
Strange rhythm of human corpses.
All existence, all that could exist
Laid bare in a flash. The rest of the world
The swelling of a horse’s corpse
At the side of an upturned train,
The smell of smouldering electric wires
(Hara Tamiki, clearly about Hiroshima)

I may be silent, but
I’m thinking,
I may not talk, but
Don’t mistake me for a wall.
(Tsuboi Shigeji)

I feel that I got more out of the older end of this collection, but the modern ones had some awesome ones too. As I sometimes do with cookbooks, while reading them, I here also noted down all the poems that particularly stood out to me. There were many. A lot of nature images, a lot of melancholy, and very easy to visualise. I might want to read this collection again someday, and much slower, just to enjoy them properly. Another good collection experience.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I may be silent, but
I'm thinking.
I may not talk, but
Don't mistake me for a wall."
-Tsuboi Shigeji, "Silent, but..."

This fairly sleek little book is really a fantastic survey of Japanese poetry, starting at around 270 AD and going all the way up to modern times. As somewhat of an aficionado for Japanese literature, this is the jackpot. It's got everything I could possibly ask for: haikus, tanka, waka, kanshi, free-form poems, excerpts from novels. It's wonderful to see the evolution in a chronological way. But on a more superficial level, I find that Japanese poetry is really some of the best I've come across; it's probably even better in Japanese than it is translated into English. But since I don't speak any Japanese, I am happy with what I can get from this translation.

I don't think I have a specific favorite part of this collection, but I can safely say I wrote down a lot of poems from different time periods just for my own pleasure and entertainment. Nerdy, I know... But definitely worth the time.

[Paul H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but there are better collections/translations out there; Carter's anthology for Stanford Press is far superior.

Also I'd like to have a long conversation with the editor at Penguin who chose to devote a total of three pages to Matsuo Basho, one page to Yosa no Buson . . . and 90 pages to twentieth-century Japanese poets, all of whom are terrible (they even manage to leave out Santoka Taneda, who is literally the only good haiku poet after 1910 or so).

For reference, this would be like publishing a one-volume collection of English-language poetry in Japanese translation, and devoting three pages to Milton, one page to Shakespeare . . . and 90 pages to William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, and John Berryman.

[Akemi G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess I've read most of the poems in the original Japanese. Yes, poetry is that popular in Japan. And I like the translation I've seen in this book.

[Flo]

The clichés of everyday speech are often to be traced to famous ancient poems, and the traditional forms of poetry are widely known and loved. The congenial attitude comes from a poetical history of about a millennium and a half...

Another must-read.

[Amy Chavez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an introductory book to Japanese poetry. If you don't already know a lot about J-poetry, many of the poems will be lost on you. It's always nice to have new/different translations of the classics, but this collection was mostly poems with no context. That said, the prologue + preamble is 78 pages long which covers the basics. The TOC gives 1-2 sentence introductions to each section, and the book is divided, helpfully, into Japanese eras and includes some modern poets such as Ishigaki Rin, Ooka Makoto and Shiraishi Kazuko. I'll keep this on my shelf for reference.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't prepared for the introduction to be that in depth about language and how it works.

Earth is despair and shame
But I am no bird, and I
Cannot escape from it

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Translated and introduced by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite this is a collection of Japanese poetry that was first published in 1964 (and again in 1998).

It's is divided into five sections: Primitive Poetry and the Nara Period (to AD 794); the Heian Period (794-1185); Kamakura and Muromachi Periods (1185-1605); Edo Period (1605-1868) and Modern Period (from 1868).

Japanese poetry is - from my limited experience - allusive and subtle. In the earlier periods in is formally structured too. The tanka/waku and haiku being the most obvious examples. From reading One Hundred Poets, One Hundred Poems I'm also aware of the difficulties in translating Japanese poetry to reveal its whole meaning without footnoting it to death - for example why place names are sometimes more than place names.

Whilst I enjoyed reading this I found the section I enjoyed the most was the Modern Period. There was one poem in particular, Late Summer by Kinoshita Yuji, that felt like the Japanese equivalent of Adlestrop by Edward Thomas:

The pumpkin tendrils creep
Along the station platform.
A ladybird peeps
From a chink in the half-closed flowers.

A stopping train comes in.
No one gets on, or off.

On the millet stalk
Growing by the railing
The young ticket-man
Rests his clippers.

I think this will be a collection I re-visit. Perhaps a section at a time. There's a lot of poetry in here and if you're not careful you can spin past haiku after haiku without giving them the time to settle.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think, fort he most part, I enjoyed the older poems to the newer ones, but this was still an enjoyable read. I liked the vast range of poetry that was presented, and it was nice to find some new poets to read in future.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are interested in Japanese poetry, then this is an ideal place to start. The first three-quarters of this poetic anthology focuses primarily on traditional Japanese poetic styles such as Choka, Haiku, Imayo, Tanka, and so forth. Separated into chronological sections, and a comprehensive introduction, this is an anthology welcoming to those new to to Basho, Issa, Senryu, and so on. There's also an extensive section in regards to more contemporary Japanese poetry after the 1868 Meiji Revolution, in this "New-Style" of poetry, notably more convoluted than the precise mechanisms seen by the old poet masters. A criticism I found with the latter section of the book, was that many of the modern poems read, sounded more like nonsense, or at best came across haphazard. A highlight though of this section was Asubuki Ryoji's "I classify". In conclusion, I'd recommend this anthology to anyone with a interest in Japan, or poetic literature, as this acts as an ideal stepping stone.

[v · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, simple, solemn poetry seemingly unbroken in pursuit of its own aim and style for over a thousand years. Well, that's my impression since the front- and back-matter is not as enlightening as it should be -- there is all of one sentence explaining the method and intent of these translations.

[Katherine Fraser · Rating 5 out of 5]

so. i enjoyed this a lot. read treal slow tho caus eim kinda lazy but uhhhhh yrah was pretty cool. im not usually a fan of poetry but this was prettycool.

[Jakub Stehlík · Rating 4 out of 5]

my favorite one is when they wrote a poem because someone made a yo mama joke about their mom

[k.]

a satisfying survey of japanese poetry.

[Iulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The blowing wind’ - O. Mitsune

‘Fallen flower I see’ - A. Moritake

‘You never touch’ - Y. Akiko

‘Autumn in jail’ - T. Shigeji

‘Beach rainbow’ - T. Shinkichi

‘Three voices’ - T. Ryuichi

[xabi robilotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

bellísima antología cronológica

[Ralph Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful historically ordered collection of poetry emphasising silence and calm.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

The translations feel a little too plainly literal for my liking

[Mejix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uneven, like most anthologies, but mostly good. A panoramic view. Very strong selection of poems from the 8th to the 19th centuries.

[Michael Vawser]

First Edition 1964

[Taylor Swift Scholar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful! I liked the early poetry more than the contemporary stuff. Lots of long distance yearning, which paired well with this, our current season of heated rivalry.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel able to say it at last: haiku is pathological, a genre absolutely limited to the engraving of flat single images. And single (or paired) verbal images of nature do nothing for me; it is relation and juxtaposition and story and reductios and original presentation that give images life. The haiku leaves almost no room for these. (This is not about length; the senryu retains wonderful possibilities, because they are animated by satire rather than po-faced nature-worship. Jokes can stand alone.)

This book cannot be blamed for being half haiku, because that mechanical law ruled Japanese poetry for thousands of years and this is first of all a historical selection. Lots more to see.

Currently I am only fond of the ancient gnostic hermits and the droll postwar internationalists (no multi-culturalists here). Many of the others emote at us too directly - the likes of "Oh how // I miss my wife // out here // on the border wall" - which brittle superficiality fails Wei Tai's test and mine. In general their ancients have dated much better than ours, perhaps because they grokked ironic minimalism a thousand years before us.

The emperors and shoguns all write poetry, are still all required to profess about the land that they perch upon. Meiji:

In newspapers, all seethe doings of the world,which lead nowhere.Better never written!

Amen. I liked Yamanoue Okura, Yakamochi, the Kokinshū, Ki Tsurayuki, Tsuboi Shigeji, Kaneko Mitsuhara, Takahashi Mutsuo. I absolutely do not have sufficient knowledge to stop there. Skip Bownas' enormous Preface too, you don't need it.

In one sentence: 無.

[John Pappas · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not quite as comprehensive or informative as David Hinton's Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry from a few years back, this updated edition of Japanese poetry provides a survey of 1,500 years of Japanese verse. There are many poems here, including some new 20th century additions that did not appear in the earlier editions, representing the diverse kinds and modes of Japan's poets. The editors often include just one poem from a particular poet and favor breadth instead of depth in most cases -- we only get to know a few poets deeply, and those poets often are featured in their own collections. It would be nice to read more of the poets who we can not find so readily as Basho or Issa. The strength of this collection certainly lies the poems included from the modern era, and in the prefatory notes on language, culture and history that elucidate the major periods of poetry in the collection.

[*Sklip* · Rating 3 out of 5]

I also picked this up for my advanced english class during our poetry analysis unit, and liked it.

A lot of the poems were about people and nature, and my favorite ones were "Stars" by Takenaka Iku and "Growing Up" by Tanikawa Shuntaro. These two were my favorites because I could sense the emotions and messages in the poem.

[James Violand · Rating 5 out of 5]

In general, the Oriental mind has a more sensitive talent in depicting man's life in Nature. Succinct, beautiful verse. However, unlike the Chinese talent for reflecting all of experience, the Japanese tend to be brutally pessimistic about the vicissitudes of life.

[Painting · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delight it is...
to find a book with a this poem by Tachibana Akemi.

[Matt Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

To read my review of this book and others, please visit:

http://miscmss.blogspot.com/2012/12/t...

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the poetry was great and some wasn't as great. But all in all the book is a good introduction to the various Japanese poets and their style.