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A sequel to Kenneth Rexroth’s 100 Poems from the Japanese published 20 years later in response to the popularity of his first collection. It continues with Rexroth’s admirable selections and translation of traditional Japanese poetry, mostly in tanka form (a five-line poem with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic structure). There are slightly over 100 poems included, this time with a greater presence of anonymous poets, almost one-half of the anthology. Oh, and this: there is a lot of erotic poetry!

Without the author’s preface, it’s unclear how the poems are ordered. Neither chronologically nor alphabetically by poets, it appears they follow different themes in imagery, but then the tradition of having multiple meanings makes a thematic classification difficult. Though the book can be read in one sitting, the poems, in all their masterful brevity and subtlety, pack so much behind a simple imagery that they invite constant re-reading.

Here are a few:

This world of ours,
To what shall I compare it?
To the white wake of a boat
That rows away in the early dawn.
~Shami Mansei, early 8th century

From the beginning
I knew meeting could only
End in parting, yet
I ignored the coming dawn
And I gave myself to you.
~Fujiwara No Teika (1162-1241), considered one of the last greatest poets from the classical period

Anonymous:

I loathe the twin seas
Of being and not being
And long for the mountain
Of bliss untouched by
The changing tides.
(a Buddhist poem from the �Ѳ��Բ�õ anthology)

The cicada cries out
Burning with love.
The firefly burns
With silent love.
(a 4-line dodoitsu poem)

I sleep alone,
On my tearstained pillow,
Like an abandoned boat,
Adrift on the sea.
(“a prostitute’s song from Yokahama��)

The anthology includes many women poets and two of them drew my attention this time. First is Izumi Shikibu, a poetess from the late 10th century whose Buddhist sensibility, Rexroth writes, is “most poignant�� in all of the Japanese classic poetry. Here are a couple of her poems:

In the dusk the path
You used to come to me
Is overgrown and indistinguishable,
Except for the spider webs
That hang across it
Like threads of sorrow.

It is the time of rain and snow
I spend sleepless nights
And watch the frost
Frail as your love
Gather in the dawn.

Another one is among the three poets from more modern times in the collection, Yosano Akiko (1878-1942). She was a versatile and prolific writer from the early 20th century who preferred her poems in the traditional tanka verse; in her times, she was also a leading feminist, political left activist, and pacifist. Her River of Stars: Selected Poems is now happily queued for my reading, very soon I hope.

Come at last to this point
I look back on my passion
And realize that I
Have been like a blind man
Who is unafraid of the dark.

Over the old honeymoon cottage
At the mountain temple
The wild cherry blossoms are falling.
Here, in the desolate false dawn,
The stars go out in heaven.

***
Now my major caveat about this anthology:
With the exception of 3 modern poets, Rexroth sourced the poems from several classic materials, many from the two major medieval anthologies, �Ѳ��Բ�õ and Kokin. Unfortunately, without any introduction, a reader would be at a loss to understand their background and significance in the history of Japanese poetry. It’s prepared as if assuming that it cannot be read as standalone book, but as a part of his first collection which does include an excellent introduction. (I briefly summarized the �Ѳ��Բ�õ and Kokin anthologies in my review of his first book.) Brief biographies of the poets occasionally reference the source for their selection and using the terminology without explanations. Mansei’s tanka poem, for example, is annotated as one of the earliest yo no naka no (or wo), but Rexroth never explains what it means except that once he thought to compile the wo collection from the earliest times to modern pop songs. I looked around and still can’t find what it means.

Had it not been for the manifold subtlety and beauty of the poems as well as very good translations, the quality of the anthology of ancient verse without proper background explanations would not be more than 3 stars from this reader.