Synopses & Reviews
A thousand years ago women poets at the Japanese imperial court created a written aesthetic of unmatched elegance and technical skill. Today, Japanese women poets write with equal sophistication about romance, family life, and sexuality, and about divorce, loneliness, feminism, politics, and the West. In this landmark anthology of traditional short verse (the haiku and the slightly longer tanka) fifteen contemporary Japanese women poets reveal the changing society that is Japan today. Winner of the 1995 Benjamin Franklin Award.
Review
"This important collection brings to its readers the evolution and continuation of one of the strongest literary traditions of women writers worldwide, but more significantly, it brings poems that move, surprise, and penetrate. A Long Rainy Season shows how passion, ideas, and the broad range of human experience can be held in brief poems of large reach--a great gift for us all." -Jane Hirschfield
Review
"This is a stunning treasury of fresh, beautiful poems written by Japanese women alive, amazing, and as various as stars." -June Jordan
Synopsis
Winner of the 1995 Benjamin Franklin Award, this is a landmark anthology of traditional short verse. In haiku and tanka fifteen Japanese women poets reveal universal female themes through the lens of a challenging spiritual and physical Japanese environment.
About the Author
Leza Lowitz is an award-winning poet and fiction writer.Miyuki Aoyama is a poet and translator.Akemi Tomioka teaches American Literature at St. Agnes' Junior College in Osaka.