About this work
Sample tanka with prose introductions demonstrate responses to another poet, reflections on writing and mortality, and remembrance of Kitahara Hakushu. An archived set of tanka examples and writing guidance published in 2020. All five poems, their prose introductions, readings and original signatures are retained, together with the opening and closing guidance. Course details and invitations to submit work are historical, not current guidance. This English version is an editorial translation for access; the Japanese text remains available alongside it for comparison.
Parallel reading
日本語と英語で読む
Read the Japanese original and its English translation together. On smaller screens, each language follows in sequence.
日本語原文 Japanese original
初冬の佇まいを静謐なる庭園を愛でゐて
苔むした石に落ちたる一凛の椿語るがに静もる初冬 伊豆 三井茂子
本歌取り。ためらふ心と訪なふ人を想ひて
苔はらひ棕櫚縄結びし関守の水面に映る手弱女の袖 葉山 成秋
苦悩も憤怒も忘れまじペンに託せし吾滅びても
吾がペンも吾が書もゐるをる寄り添ひぬ何処ぞ吾だけ旅立つ朝まで
葉山 成秋
己の生への推し測り難きを詠める
何故に喰らひて書くや何故に生きて何故死して何故
きのふ城ケ島に遊びて白秋の魂に遭ふて語れり
君問ふな幾年虚し城ケ島数へる指に雨粒の舞ふ
このように限りある命や古人への思いを歌うもよし。横浜読売文化センターでは私が土曜の午後に指導。歓談も楽しく。事務担当は佐野様。ほかのジャンルも雛型に拘らずまずは投稿されよ。
English translation 英訳
AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
We seek first of all poems of the heart, rich in the fragrance of Romanticism. A headnote is welcome because it lets readers imagine the scene before and after the poem. Place the writer’s location above the name. Shigeko Mitsui is a tanka poet who developed her work under my guidance at the Yokohama Yomiuri Culture Center.
Admiring the stillness of a garden at the beginning of winter:
A single camellia fallen on a moss-grown stone
seems to speak as early winter settles into silence.
Shigeko Mitsui, Izu
After a poem of the past, thinking of a hesitant heart and the visitor who calls:
The barrier keeper brushes away moss and ties a palm-fibre rope;
upon the water is reflected a gentlewoman’s sleeve.
Seishu Hamano, Hayama
I will not forget suffering or fury;
I entrust them to my pen, even should I perish.
My pen and my books remain here, close beside me—
where is it that I alone depart, before morning comes?
Seishu Hamano, Hayama
On the unfathomable mystery of one’s own life:
Why do I eat and write? Why live?
Why die? Why?
Seishu Hamano, Hayama
Yesterday on Jogashima, I encountered the spirit of Hakushu and spoke with him:
Ask me not how many empty years have passed—
raindrops dance on the fingers with which I count Jogashima.
Seishu Hamano, Hayama
We value poems that voice such finite lives and thoughts of those who came before us. I teach at the Yokohama Yomiuri Culture Center on Saturday afternoons, where the conversations are also a pleasure. Sano is the staff member in charge. Submissions in other genres are welcome; writers need not feel bound by these models. Please begin by sending us your work.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.