Fujiwara Teika

    
 

 

 

  

 1162-1241 Considered by many to be the preeminent Japanese poet.

A poet, diarist, critic, his influence on premodern Japanese poetry is unsurpasssed.
   
         His poetry specialized almost exclusively in the waka, the dominant lyrical form of the Japanese classical period, a five-line poem consisting of thirty-one syllables, arranged in measures of five syllables, then seven, five, seven, and seven.        

Touched by drizzling rain,
All around, the treetops
With their colours say
Autumn in evening is
A time of change, indeed.

                                     As I gaze out,
                                     Neither blossom nor Autumn leaves
                                     Are here;
                                     In a beachfront hut
                                     On an Autumn evening.

Fallen rain dripping
From the leaning eaves
So shallow that
Swiftly in pours
The moonlight.

                                Awaiting one whose
                                Path among the foothills
                                Has vanished, I think;
                                The cedar by my eaves
                                Is buried deep in snow.

 

 

 

                                                                     

 

Prof studies this poet

Various links and a good article.

His poems