The best-known forms of Japanese poetry (outside Japan) are haiku and senryu. The classic traditional form is in fact waka. Much poetry in Japan was written in the Chinese language, so it is more accurate to speak of Japanese-language poetry. For example, in the Tale of Genji both kinds of poetry are frequently mentioned. When Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry, it was at its peak in the Tang dynasty and Japanese poets were totally fascinated. It took them several hundred years to digest the foreign impact, make it a part of their culture and merge it with their literary tradition in their mother tongue, and begin to develop the diversity of their native poetry. Waka and Kanshi, Chinese poetry including Japanese works written in (sometimes corrupted) Chinese, were the two greatest pillar(new name for waka), haiku and shi.

Nowadays the main forms of Japanese poetry can be divided into experimental poetry and poetry that seeks to revive traditional ways. Poets writing in tanka, haiku and shi move in separate planes and seldom write poetry other than in their specific chosen form, although some active poets are eager to collaborate wollections are the Man'yoshu, Kokin-wakashu and Shin-kokin-wakashu.

Ancient

Poems in Kojiki and Nihonshoki
Until Korean scholars brought Chinese classical texts to Japan in the 6th century, Japanese was an unwritten language. The oldest written work in Japanese literature is Kojiki in the 8th century, in which Ota Yasumaro recorded Japanese mythology and history as recited by Hieda no Are, to whom it was handed down by his ancestors. Many of the poetic pieces recorded by the Kojiki were perhaps transmitted from the time the Japanese had no writing. The Nihonshoki, the oldest history of Japan which was finished two years later than the Kojiki, also contains many poetic pieces. These were mostly not long and had no fixed forms. The first poem documented in both books was attributed to a kami (god), e oldest waka (poem written in Japanese) and hence poetry was later praised as having been foundeuse it recorded later affairs (up till the reign of Emperor Temmu) than Kojiki. Themes of waka in the books were diverse, covering love, sorrow, satire, war cries, praise of victory, riddles and so on. Most of these works are considered collectively as 'works of the people', even where attributed to someone, such as the kami Susaono. Many works in Kojiki were anonymous. Some were attributed to kami, emperors and empresses, nobles, generals, commoners and sometimes enemies of the court.

Early Manyoshu poets (Vol. I-III)
The oldest poetic anthology of waka is the 20 volume Manyoshu. Probably finished in the early part of the Heian period, it gathered ancient works. The order of its sections is roughly chronological. Most of the works in the Manyoshu have a fixed form today called choka and tanka. But earlier works, espee Manyoshu begins with a waka without fixed form. It is both a love song for an unknown girl whom the poet met by chance and a ritual song praising the beauty of the land. It is worthy of being attributed to an empefirst three sections contain mostly the works of poets from the middle of the 7th century to the early part of the 8th century. Significant poets among them were Nukata no Okimi and Kakinomoto Hitomaro. Kakinomoto Hitomaro was not only the greatest poet in those early days and one of most significant in the Manyoshu, he rightly has a place as one of the most outstanding poets in Japanese literature.

Chinese influence
Chinese literature was introduced into Japan in the 7th Century. It took almost a half century before it began to influence Japanese literature. In the court of Emperor Temmu some nobles made attempts to recite Chinese poetry. Chinese literacy was a sign of education and most high courtiers wrote poetry in Chinese. Later these works were collected in the Kaifuso, one of the earliest anthologies of poetry in Japan, edited in the early Heian period. Thanks to this book the death poem of Prince Otsu is still extant today.

Nara period poets
In 710 the Japanese capital moved from Fujiwara (today's Asuka, Nara) to Nara and the Nara period (710-794) began. It was the period when Chinese influence reached its culmination. Todai-ji was established and the Great Buddha was created under the order of Emperor Shomu. The significant waka poets in this period were Otomo no Tabito, Yamanoue no Okura, and Yamabe no Akahito. The Manyoshu included also many female poets who mainly wrote love poems. The poets of the Manyoshu were aristocrats who were born in Nara but sometimes lived or traveled in other provinces as bureaucrats of the emperor. These poets wrote down their impressions of travel and expressed their emotion for lovers or children. Sometimes their poems criticized the political failure of the government or tyranny asashi to / Omoe domo / Tobitachi kanetsu / Tori ni shi arane ba
I feel the life is / sorrowful and unbearable / though / I can't flee away / since I am not a bird.
The Manyoshu contains not only poems of aristocrats but also those of nameless ordinary people. These poems are called Yomibito shirazu, poems whose author is unknown. Among them there is a specific style of waka called Azuma-uta, waka written in the Eastern dialect. Azuka, meaning the East, designated the eastern provinces roughly corresponding to Kanto and occasionally Tohoku. Those poems were filled with rural flavors. There was a specific style among Azuma-uta, called Sakimori uta, soldiers' waka. They were mainly waka by drafted soldiers at leaving home. These soldiers were drafted in the eastern provinces and were forced to work as guards in Kyushu for several years. Sometimes their poetry expressed nostalgia for their far homeland.

Waka in the early Heian period
It is thought the Manyoshu reached its final form, the one we know today, very early in the Heian period. There are strong grounds for believing that Otomo no Yakamochi was the final editor but some documents claim further editing was done in the later period by other poets including Sugawara no Michizane.Though there was a strong inclination towards Chinese poetry, some eminent waka poets were active in the early Heian period, including the six best waka poets.

The culmination of Kanshi

Sugawara no Michizane is revered as the god of learning, as seen on this ema at a Shinto shrine.In the early Heian period Chinese poetry or Kanshi (??, Chinese poetry) was most the popular style of poetry among Japanese aristocrats. Some poets like Kukai studied in China and were fluent in Chinese.n they hosted foreign diplomats, they communicated not orally but in writing, using Kanji or Chinese characters. In that period, Chinese poetry in China had reached one of its culminations. Great Chinese poets of the Tang dynasty like Li Po were their contemporaries. These Chinese poets' works were known very well. Some people who went to China for study or diplomacy made the acquaintance of these major poets. The most popular styles of Kanshi were in 5 or 7 syllables in 4 or 8 lines. The rules of rhyme were very strict. Japanese poets became skilled in those rules and wrote many good poems. SometiEmperor Saga himself was good at Kanshi. He ordered the compilation of three anthologies of Kanshi. These were the first of the imperial anthologies, a tradition which continued till the Muromachi period.

Kokinshu
In the middle of the Heian period Waka revived with the compilation of the Kokin- wakashu (??(??)? kokin (waka)shu, "collection of ancient and modern poems"). It was edited on the order of Emperor Daigo. About 1,000 waka, mainly from the late Nara period till the contemporary times, were anthologized by five waka poets in the court including Kino Tsurayuki who wrote the "Preface in Kana" (Kana preface to Kokinshu was the second earliest expression of literary theory and criticism in Japan (the earliest was by Kukai). Kukai's literary theory was not influential, but Kokinshu set the types of waka and hence other genres which would develop from waka.

The collection is divided into twenty parts, reflecting older models such as the man'yoshu and various Chinese anthologies. The organisation of topics is however different from all earlier models, and was followed by all later official collections, although some collections like the kin'yoshu and shikashu reduced the number of parts to ten. The parts of the kokinshu are ordered as follows: Parts 1-6 covered the four seasons, followed by congratulatory poems, poetry at partings, and travel poems. The last ten sections included poetry on the 'names of things', love, laments, occasional poems, miscompilers included the name of the author of each poem, and the topic (? dai) or inspiration of the poem, if known. Major poets of the kokinshu include Ariwara Narihira, Ono no Komachi, Henjo and Fujiwara no Okikaze, apart from the compilers themselves. Inclusion in any imperial collection, and particularly the kokinshu, was a great honour.

Influence of Kokin-wakashu
The kokinshu is the first of the nijuichidaishu poetry until the late nineteenth century. The primacy of poems about the seasons pioneered by the kokinshu continues even today in the haiku tradition. The Japanese preface by Ki no Tsurayuki is also the beginning of Japanese criticism as distinct from the far more prevalent Chinese poetics in the literary circles of its day. (The anthology also included a traditional Chinese preface authored by Ki no Tomonori.) The idea of including old as well as new poems was another important innovation, one which was widely adopted in later works, both in prose and verse. The poems of the kokinshu were ordered temporally; the love poems, for instance, depict the progression and fluctuations of a courtly love-affair. This association of one poem to the next marks this anthology as the ancestor of the renga and haikai traditions.

Imperial anthologies of Waka
After Shinkokinshu ordered and edited by Emperor Go-Toba, eight waka anthologies were compiled under imperial edict. Tt was a custom to exchange waka instead of letters in prose. Sometimes improvised waka were used in daily conversation in high society. In particular, the exchange of waka was common between lovers. Reflecting this custom, five of the twenty volumes of the Kokin Wakashu (or Kokinshu) gathered waka for love. In the Heian period the lovers would exchange waka in the morning when lovers parted at the woman's home. The exchanged waka were called Kinuginu ( because it was thought the man wanted to stay with his lover and when the sun rose he had almost no time to don his clothes which had been laid out in place of a mattress (as was the custom in those days). Soo waka recitation contests, developed in the middle of the Heian period. The custom began in the the Kokin Wakashu. Representives of each team recited a waka according to their theme and the winner of the round won a point. The team with the higher overall score won the contest. BoUta-ai inceased. Uta-ai were recorded with hundreds of rounds. Uta-ai motivated the refinement of waka technique but also made waka formalistic and artificial. Poets were expected to create vely slow and long tones. Not whole poetic pieces but a part of classics were quoted and recited by individuals usually followed by a chorus. Fujiwara no Kinto compiled Wakan roeishu (Sino-Japanese Anthology for Roei) from Japanese and Chinese poetry works written for roei. One or two lines were quoted in Wakan roeishu and those quotations were grouped into themes like Spring, Travel, Celebration.

Age of Nyobo or court ladies

Book and Tale of Genji, from the early 11th century, provide us with examples of the life of aristocrats i in 8-5 syllables. Usually it was accompanied by music and dance. Female dancer Shirabyoshi danced to the accompaniment of Imayo. Major works were compiled into
odern style and on the other hand a revival of the traditional style. Both trends had their schools and won the honor to compile imperial anthologies of waka. Fujiwara no Shunzei and his son Fujiwara no Teika win this period for the first time renga were included in the imperial anthologies of waka. At that time, renga was considered a variant of waka. The renga included were waka created by two persons only, kokite period rule by cloistered Emperors, or the early Kamakura period, Emperor Go-Toba, who had abdicated, ordered the compilation of the eighth imperial anthology of waka, the Shinkokin Wakashu. Go-Toba himself joined the team of editors. Other editors included Fujiwara no Teika and Kamo no Chomei.

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