Haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan, and can be traced back from the influence of traditional Chinese poetry. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 phonetic units in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a kireji, or "cutting word"; and a kigo, or seasonal reference. However, haiku by classical Japanese poets, such as Matsuo Bashō, also deviate from the 17-on pattern and sometimes do not contain a kireji. Similar poems that do not adhere to these rules are generally classified as senryū.
The Man'yōshū is the oldest extant collection of Japanese waka, compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is today widely believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi, although numerous other theories have been proposed. The chronologically last datable poem in the collection is from AD 759 (No. 4516). It contains many poems from a much earlier period, with the bulk of the collection representing the period between AD 600 and 759. The precise significance of the title is not known with certainty.
Tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature.
Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism has been termed "a succession of creative moments" rather than a continuous or sustained period of development. The French academic René Taupin remarked that "it is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles".
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors.
The Kokin Wakashū, commonly abbreviated as Kokinshū (古今集), is an early anthology of the waka form of Japanese poetry, dating from the Heian period. An imperial anthology, it was conceived by Emperor Uda and published by order of his son Emperor Daigo in about 905. Its finished form dates to c. 920, though according to several historical accounts the last poem was added to the collection in 914.
The Shin Kokin Wakashū, also known in abbreviated form as the Shin Kokinshū (新古今集) or even conversationally as the Shin Kokin, is the eighth imperial anthology of waka poetry compiled by the Japanese court, beginning with the Kokin Wakashū circa 905 and ending with the Shinshokukokin Wakashū circa 1439. The name can be literally translated as "New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems" and bears an intentional resemblance to that of the first anthology. Together with the Man'yōshū and the Kokinshū, the Shin Kokinshū is widely considered to be one of the three most influential poetic anthologies in Japanese literary history. It was commissioned in 1201 by the retired emperor Go-Toba, who established a new Bureau of Poetry at his Nijō palace with eleven Fellows, headed by Fujiwara no Yoshitsune, for the purpose of conducting poetry contests and compiling the anthology. Despite its emphasis on contemporary poets, the Shin Kokinshū covered a broader range of poetic ages than the Kokinshū, including ancient poems that the editors of the first anthology had deliberately excluded. It was officially presented in 1205, on the 300th anniversary of the completion of the Kokinshū.
Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in the Chinese language or ryūka from the Okinawa Islands: it is possible to make a more accurate distinction between Japanese poetry written in Japan or by Japanese people in other languages versus that written in the Japanese language by speaking of Japanese-language poetry. Much of the literary record of Japanese poetry begins when Japanese poets encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang dynasty. Under the influence of the Chinese poets of this era Japanese began to compose poetry in Chinese kanshi); and, as part of this tradition, poetry in Japan tended to be intimately associated with pictorial painting, partly because of the influence of Chinese arts, and the tradition of the use of ink and brush for both writing and drawing. It took several hundred years to digest the foreign impact and make it an integral part of Japanese culture and to merge this kanshi poetry into a Japanese language literary tradition, and then later to develop the diversity of unique poetic forms of native poetry, such as waka, haikai, and other more Japanese poetic specialties. For example, in the Tale of Genji both kanshi and waka are frequently mentioned. The history of Japanese poetry goes from an early semi-historical/mythological phase, through the early Old Japanese literature inclusions, just before the Nara period, the Nara period itself, the Heian period, the Kamakura period, and so on, up through the poetically important Edo period and modern times; however, the history of poetry often is different from socio-political history.
The Kaifūsō is the earliest extant poetry anthology of literary Sinitic (kanshi) written by Japanese poets.
Ariwara no Narihira was a Japanese courtier and waka poet of the early Heian period. He was named one of both the Six Poetic Geniuses and the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses, and one of his poems was included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu collection. He is also known as Zai Go-Chūjō, Zai Go, Zai Chūjō or Mukashi-Otoko.
Jayanta Mahapatra was an Indian poet. He is the first Indian poet to win a Sahitya Akademi award for English poetry. He was the author of poems such as "Indian Summer" and "Hunger", which are regarded as classics in modern Indian English literature. He was awarded a Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in India in 2009, but he returned the award in 2015 to protest against rising intolerance in India.
The Shinshokukokin Wakashū was an imperial anthology of Japanese waka; it was finished somewhere around 1439 CE, six years after the Emperor Go-Hanazono first ordered it in 1433 at the request of the Ashikaga Shōgun Ashikaga Yoshinori. It was compiled by Asukai Masayo ; its Japanese and Chinese Prefaces were written by Ichijō Kanera. It consists of twenty volumes containing 2,144 poems.
Fujiwara no Kintō, also known as Shijō-dainagon, was a Japanese poet, admired by his contemporaries and a court bureaucrat of the Heian period. His father was the regent Fujiwara no Yoritada and his son Fujiwara no Sadayori. An exemplary calligrapher and poet, he is mentioned in works by Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shōnagon and in a number of other major chronicles and texts.
The Rokkasen are six Japanese poets of the mid-ninth century who were named by Ki no Tsurayuki in the kana and mana prefaces to the poetry anthology Kokin wakashū as notable poets of the generation before its compilers.
Waka is a type of poetry in classical Japanese literature. Although waka in modern Japanese is written as 和歌, in the past it was also written as 倭歌, and a variant name is yamato-uta (大和歌).