Preface
Western students of Japanese literature know little of the renaissance of poetic inspiration which originated during the closing years of the nineteenth century. It produced such significant writers as Takuboku Ishikawa, Sachio Ito, and Akahiko Shimaki, and among the living poets Mrs. Akiko Yosano, Hakushu Kitahara, and Dr. Mokichi Saito who are the leaders of their own schools. The purpose of the Modern Japanese Poets Series is to introduce them.
The present volume, the second of the series, includes a small but significant portion of Akiko Yosano’s work. The only poetess in the series represents the romantic school of modern Japanese poetry, and is not a stranger in the West[1]. The first one hundred twenty-two poems are in the classical form of thirty-one syllables, while the last fifteen are in the longer modern mode, which actually is formless. I have aimed at
- ↑ Three Women Poets of Modern Japan, by Glenn Hughes and Yozan T. Iwasaki. (University of Washington Chapbooks No. 9.)
xiii 
