This week on the podcast, something completely different! I’m getting some help talking about poetry from Mike Freiling, whose new translation of Hyakunin Isshu, entitled One Hundred Poems of Old Japan, will be out just a little over a week from now. We’ll talk tanka vs. haiku, how translation works, and share a few favorites from one of Japan’s most classic poetic compilations.
You can access the episode via this RSS feed
Note: the “white overlay” issues many of you have been having lately are caused by an issue with my hosting service and how it interacts with WordPress. Hoping for a fix; in the meantime, you can access episodes directly via the link above.
Sources
Freiling, Mike. One Hundred Poems of Old Japan: A New Translation of Hyakunin Isshu
The fine folks at Tuttle Publishing have made available recordings of all the poems both in translation and the original here!
Images
I am a long-time fan of the podcast. I live in Tokyo and do shigin (詩吟), a form of Chinese/Japanese poetry chanting. I am deeply fascinated with Dr. Freiling’s work and would be curious to know if he has any interest in 漢詩, the form of poetry we sing, which is different from Tanka or Haiku, but roughly just as old.
For reference, here are what the poems look like. OH, also, we sing Waka as well.
I’m one of only 4 Americans/non-Japanese in the country singing this classical music so I am so excited that you did this interview. Thank you so much.
https://kinjoukai.or.jp/kinjoukai/about.html