The Poetry of Living Japan: Ancient Wisdom & Modern Inspiration - Perfect for Meditation, Cultural Study & Home Decor

At 104 pages, this thin, unassuming book may not look like much, but it's probably the first presentation in English of some of modern Japan's great poets, many of whom were still alive when this was published in 1957. And it's a fine presentation at that. First of all, it gives the reader a good cross-section of modern Japanese poetry regardless of school, approach, or political orientation. As long as they don't write in the traditional forms of tanka or haiku, everyone gets a moment on the stage here. But only a moment. As you can imagine, such an inclusive attitude over such a short number of pages means that you only get a few poems from each poet (sometimes only one, five or so at the very most), which is not a lot to go on. The miracle is that the selections are so well-chosen and representative, the reader does actually get some vague sense of each poet's distinctiveness with what little's there. The translators have also succeeded in rendering each in a somewhat different poetic voice, which helps immensely--and is very hard to accomplish. The translation method is collaborative, with Ninomiya crafting literal versions and then working with Enright to get them sounding like poetry in the target language--oftentimes this can create clunky and/or misleading translations, but it surprisingly works extremely well here, walking that fine line between deadly prosaic literalness and deceitfully interpretative looseness.The book also includes helpful little extras like an introduction putting all the poems and poets in context and short biographical notes on each poet. Speaking of which, the poets included here are: Shimazaki Toson, Tsuchii Bansui, Susukida Kyukin, Kambara Ariake, Kitahara Hakushu, Miki Rofu, Kinosita Mokutaro, Takamura Kotaro, Yamamura Bocho, Hagiwara Sakutaro, Muro Saisei, Sato Haruo, Miyazawa Kenji, Takahashi Shinkichi, Nakano Shigeharu, Ono Tosaburo, Anzai Fuyue, Kitagawa Fuyuhiko, Takenaka Iku, Yamamura Jun, Miyoshi Tatsuji, Nishiwaki Junzaburo, Kusano Shimpei, Hishiyama Shuzo, Fukao Sumako, Maruyama Kaoru, Tanaka Fuyuji, Ito Shizuo, Tanaka Katsumi, and Tachihara Michizo.