Author Description

Japan, unlike most other literary traditions, has been blessed with outstanding women poets since the earliest times: Princess Nukata, of the seventh century, who sang of the comparative merits of spring and autumn; Lady Izumi, of the eleventh century, whose sexual behavior scandalized Lady Murasaki, author of The Tale of Genji; Murasaki herself, with her sober meditations on life; Ema Saiko, of the late Edo period, who wrote in classical Chinese; Yosano Akiko, whose book Hair in Disorder, published in 1901, had a liberating effect on the sexual mores of the day; and most recently, Mayuzumi Madoka, the haiku celebrity who, in her own TV show, has touched off the latest haiku boom in Japan.Award-winning translator Hiroaki Sato succinctly introduces each poet included in this edition and explains her significance. He also distills the complex contexts and rigorous forms in which the poems were created. An anthology long overdue, this promises to be the standard survey for years to come.