One Hundred People, One Poem Each

Around 1235, Japanese poet and scholar Fujiwara no Teika compiled for his son’s father-in-law a collection of one hundred poems by one hundred poets. Within its chronological summary of six centuries of Japanese literature, Teika arranged a poetic conversation that ebbs and flows through a variety of subjects and styles. The collection became the exemplar of the genre—a mini-manual of classical poetry, taught in the standard school curriculum and used in a memory card game still played during New Years.

One Hundred People, One Poem Each contains the best that classical Japanese poetry has to offer—here presented in a new verse translation.