Can you recommend any Japanese poets?

May 12, 2009 1:57 PM

Can you recommend any Japanese poets or anthologies of poetry?

I love reading Japanese poetry, Basho and Ryokan are two that I particularly enjoy. I've also read and enjoyed Issa, Buson, Saigyo, Henjo and Kisen from other periods in Japanese history.

Are there any current poets that you can recommend? Or are there any from earlier periods in Japanese history that are worth trying? Though I prefer haiku and waka, form and style are not important.

Thanks in advance..

posted by Nugget to Writing & Language (13 answers total)

This online exhibition has three neat naturalist books with illustration and translations. I'm no expert, but they are worth a read.
posted by Think_Long at 2:08 PM on May 12, 2009

Wait, are you after books in English or Japanese?

Contemporary: Tawara Machi?

Older: The Sarumino, edited by Boncho and Kyorai (two of Basho's disciples)? That has poetry plus commentary and criticism, which it sounds like you might enjoy.
posted by No-sword at 2:13 PM on May 12, 2009

This is a good anthology, From the Country of Eight Islands.
posted by jadepearl at 2:31 PM on May 12, 2009

I know you already mentioned Basho, but I really enjoyed this book about him. It does a great job of showing the universe in which his poetry existed, including criticism and influences. The translations are pretty great as well. My only complaint is the lack of Japanese script.
posted by kickback at 5:14 PM on May 12, 2009

Sawako Nakayasu is an interesting contemporary poet of Japanese descent, though she grew up mostly in the US and writes in English. You may be interested, however, in some of her translations from Japanese, which include an excellent single-author collection and an interesting-sounding anthology. (That page has links to excerpts from and reviews of those books, as well as links to other translations of hers online.)

I have a copy of the speaker's notes for an extremely good presentation about Japanese modernist poetry on my computer, and I'd be happy to send them to you if you're interested. The speaker does an exemplary job of discussing untranslatable, Japanese-specific linguistic decisions by the poets under consideration in terms comprehensible to nonspeakers of Japanese.

Above commenter No-sword wrote a really interesting article about an idiosyncratic translated volume of the poet Shiki, which retains, transliterated, a certain formally important type of Japanese word in the English versions. Although No-sword comes out a bit negative about the book, I think it sounds super-cool and have been meaning to track it down.

Finally, I recommend the fake Japanese poet Araki Yasusada.
posted by Mummy of a Lady Named Jemutesonekh at 5:27 PM on May 12, 2009

Japanese Death Poems is one of my favorite books. Not at all morbid, like it sounds; but reflective, romantic, and truly funny poems, with explanatory text for each work and author. Here's a Google Books preview.
posted by steef at 6:35 PM on May 12, 2009

Ogura Hyakunin Isshu
posted by avex at 7:32 PM on May 12, 2009

I liked Japanese Death Poems as well.
My favorite later poet is Yosano Akiko. I am too tired to remember how to put the metafilter ref in, so click on someone else's Amazon link above first. (It's been a long, bad week already.)
posted by wintersweet at 10:43 PM on May 12, 2009

I bought a collection of Miyazawa Kenji poems in college. I liked it - early 20th century, lots of natural and agricultural themes. Maybe his most famous poem is 雨ニモマケズ - though I say "maybe" because my knowledge of Japanese poetry s slim.
posted by thedaniel at 2:33 AM on May 13, 2009

Seriously, "Japanese Death Poems" is a must. I've had it since it was published, and still I semi-regularly grab it off the shelf, open to a random page, and read for awhile, always feeling refreshed afterwords.
posted by the bricabrac man at 3:49 AM on May 13, 2009

While you said you already enjoy Basho, Buson, and Issa, you didn't say which translations you were reading, so I'm going to suggest Essential Haiku edited by Robert Hass (a brilliant poet himself). The collection also features lots and lots of really insightful framing material, as well as some haibun and other writings from the poets (if I remember correctly). This collection has been on my "desert island" list for years.

I also recently enjoyed The Old Tea Seller: Life and Zen Poetry in 18th Century Kyoto, which is a collection of poems by and a biography of Baisao, a Zen Buddhist monk who left his practice to lead an even more spare life selling tea to travelers and writing poetry.
posted by 6and12 at 4:37 AM on May 13, 2009

Wait, brain fart, sorry. The book with commentary and criticism isn't Sarumino, it's Kyorai sho. Definitely recommended. Will give you insight into how Basho's circle thought (and argued) about poetry.

You might like Taneda Santoka, as well. He's a good example of the post-Edo "free haiku" thing and modern translations of his work are all over the place.

Thanks for the praise, Mummy of a Lady Named Jemutesonekh.
posted by No-sword at 6:17 AM on May 13, 2009

Response by poster: Thank you all for the recommendations and suggestions - they're very much appreciated and if I could mark them all as best answers I would.

I'm going to take some time tonight to go through them all properly and pick a starting point.
posted by Nugget at 9:08 AM on May 13, 2009