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Only companion : Japanese poems of love and longing

Translated by Sam Hamill

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Written by court princesses, exiled officials, Zen priests, and recluses, the 150 poems translated here represent the rich diversity of Japan’s poetic tradition. Varying in tone from the sensuous and erotic to the profoundly spiritual, each poem captures a sense of the poignant beauty and longing known only in the fleeting experience of the moment. The translator has selected these five-line tanka–one of the great traditional verse forms of Japanese literature–from sources ranging from the classical imperial anthologies of the eighth and tenth centuries to works of the early twentieth century.

subjects: Waka
genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9780877736479
OCLC number: 24065060
publisher: Shambhala, 1992, 1997
publication place: Boston
english publication date: 1992
document type: Book
description: xiii, 160 p. : col. ill. ; 13 cm.
related: Shambhala centaur editions.