Masaoka Shiki and the Way of Tanka

Itō Sachio (1864-1913) was Masaoka Shiki's most devoted disciple, and these six essays follow him across twelve years of mourning, argument and craft. A New English Translation, complete and unabridged, from the Japanese, in chronological order of first publication.

In 1901 he records a painful visit to the bedridden Shiki. In 1902, within weeks of the poet's death, he writes a public tribute and a formal letter answering a fellow disciple's question: how should the bereaved go on? In 1907 he defines the Negishi school against the rival New School of Yosano Tekkan and Akiko. In 1912 he reviews Ishikawa Takuboku's posthumous A Sad Toy with surprising generosity, quoting seven of its poems, and in 1913, a few months before his own death, he asks what makes a tanka moist and savory, with poems by Ishihara Jun.

All tanka are given as verse, with 40 endnotes, a translator's note and a glossary. AI-assisted translation.