The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse

Poetry is a living part of the modern Japanese sensibility. The traditional forms are recited, imitated and delighted in even today as vital and popular elements of Japanese culture. Telling of lost or unrequited love, the pleasures of solitude, the changing seasons, there is a remarkable continuity of themes over the centuries, and recurring images, especially those of nature-the cherry blossoms, the geese flying north in spring, the harvest moon and crimson leaves of autumn. From the third century to the present, this collection offers some of the most beautiful Japanese verse, with folk songs and lullabies alongside traditional tanka and haiku verse, as well as the 'modern style' poems with their sharper satirical flavour.