One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Treasury of Classical Japanese Verse

(Paperback)

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A new translation of the most widely known and popular collection of Japanese poetry The best-loved and most widely read of all Japanese poetry collections, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu contains 100 short poems on nature, the seasons, travel, and, above all, love. Dating back to the seventh century, these elegant, precisely observed waka poems (the precursor of haiku) express deep emotion through visual images based on a penetrating observation of the natural world. Peter MacMillan's new translation of his prize-winning original conveys even more effectively the beauty and subtlety of this magical collection.

Reviews

By far the best translation to date -- Donald Keene
For more than seven centuries, these poems have resonated with countless readers ... [Peter Macmillan's] excellent new translation of these poems makes clear why they have mattered so much for so long ... [revealing] the vivid emotions that have kept the heart of the collection beating all this time * TIME *

Author Bio

Peter MacMillan was born in Ireland and has lived in Japan for more than twenty years. He has been a visiting researcher at the universities of Princeton, Columbia and Oxford, and is currently a translator, poet and print-maker. He has translated Tales of Ise and One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each for Penguin Classics.