100 Poems from the Japanese
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It is remarkable that any Westerner—even so fine a poet as Kenneth Rexroth—could have captured in translation so much of the subtle essence of classic Japanese poetry: the depth of controlled passion, the austere elegance of style, the compressed richness of imagery. The poems are drawn chiefly from the traditional Manyoshu, Kokinshu and Hyakunin Isshu collections, but there are also examplaes of haiku and other later forms. The sound of the Japanese texts i reproduced in Romaji script and the names of the poets in the calligraphy of Ukai Uchiyama. The translator's introduction gives us basic background on the history and nature of Japanese poetry, which is supplemented by notes on the individual poets and an extensive bibliography.
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American poet Kenneth Rexroth has translated and collected over one hundred poems from the Japanese in this thin book of poetry. “Japanese poetry does what poetry does everywhere: it intensifies and exalts experience,” Rexroth tells us in his introduction to the book.
Here are a few of my favorite poems:
Have you any idea
How long a night can last, spent
Lying alone and sobbing?
I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
That spring night I spent
Pillowed on your arm
Never really happened
Except in a dream.
Unfortunately I am
Talked about anyway.
No, the human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always.
Autumn evening —
A crow on a bare branch.
No one spoke.
The host, the guest.
The white chrysanthemums.
