Tangled Hair

In August 1901 a young woman from Sakai published a book of poems that shocked and thrilled Japan. Tangled Hair (Midaregami) sings of desire, the body, pride and youth with a frankness no Japanese woman had dared in print. Its author, Ōtori Akiko, soon to be Yosano Akiko, became the most famous poet of her generation, and the book is still read as the manifesto of modern Japanese love poetry.

This translation follows the first edition of 1901, not the poet's heavily revised later versions. Each tanka is set in five English lines, keeping its images (hair five feet long, the little koto, the god of spring and night, the lamb, the peach blossom, the sin she refuses to regret) in the order and sharpness in which they come. The six original sections, Rouge-Purple, The Lotus-Flower Boat, White Lily, A Wife of Twenty, The Dancing Girl and Spring Thoughts, are kept intact, with brief notes on places, customs and difficult readings.

For readers of Japanese poetry, tanka, women's writing, and the literature of Meiji Japan.