1000 Poems from the Manyōshū

by Ōtomo no Yakamochi (Compiler), Japanese Classics Translation Committee

Dating from the 8th century and earlier, the Manyoshu is the oldest Japanese poetry anthology; it is also widely considered to be the best. The 1,000 poems (out of a total of more than 4,500) in this famous selection were chosen by a distinguished scholarly committee based on their poetic excellence, their role in revealing the Japanese national spirit and character, and their cultural and historical significance. The acclaimed translations artfully preserve the simplicity and direct quality of the originals, and encompass an enormous range of human emotions and experiences. Text is in English only

Genres: Poetry, Japan, Japanese Literature, Classics, Literature, Fiction, Asian Literature

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 759

Reviews

[Eadweard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems from a land not as easily recognizeable as the Japan we now know and are used to. Before all the cliche / stereotypical things we now associate it with (samurai, geisha, etc). A Japan beginning to expand outwards from central Honshu, still not master of the island, full of 'barbarian' Emishi and unconquered lands to the east.






PRE-ŌMI AND ŌMI PERIODS


(Empress Iwa-no-himé)
(Longing for the Emperor Nintoku)

Since you, my Lord, were gone,
Many long, long days have passed.
Should I now come to meet you
And seek you beyond the mountains,
Or still await you—await you ever?

Rather would I lay me down
On a steep hill’s side,
And, with a rock for pillow, die,
Than live thus, my Lord,
With longing so deep for you.

Yes, I will live on
And wait for you,
Even till falls
On my long black waving hair
The hoar frost of age.

How shall my yearning ever cease—
Fade somewhere away,
As does the mist of morning
Shimmering across the autumn field
Over the ripening grain?
--



(Prince Shōtoku)
(On seeing a man dead on Mount Tatsuta during his trip to the Well of Takahara.)

Had he been at home, he would have slept
Upon his wife’s dear arm;
Here he lies dead, unhappy man,
On his journey, grass for pillow.
--



(Princess Nukada)
(Yearning for the Emperor Tenji.)

While, waiting for you,
My heart is filled with longing,
The autumn wind blows—
As if it were you—
Swaying the bamboo blinds of my door.
--



(A Lady of the Court)
(On the occasion of the death of the Emperor, Tenji.)

Mortal creature as I am,
Whom the gods suffer not on high,
Wide sundered,
Each morning I lament my Lord;
Far divided,
I long and languish after my Lord.
Oh, were he a jewel
That I might put about my arm and cherish!
Oh, were he a garment
That I might wear and not put off!
The Lord whom I love so,
I saw but last night—in dream.
----




ASUKA AND FUJIWARA PERIODS


(Prince Ōtsu and Lady Ishikawa)

Waiting for you,
In the dripping dew of the hill
I stood,—weary and wet With the dripping dew of the hill.(By the Prince)

Would I had been, beloved,
The dripping dew of the hill,
That wetted you
While for me you waited.—
(By the Lady)
--



Since I left the loving hands of my mother,
Never once have I known
Such helplessness in my heart!
--



Strong man as I am,
Who force my way even through the rocks,
In love
I rue in misery
--



The great earth itself
Might be exhausted by digging,
But of love alone in this world
Could we never reach the end!
--



If the thunder rolls for a while
And the sky is clouded, bringing rain,
Then you will stay beside me.

Even when no thunder sounds
And no rain falls, if you but ask me,
Then I will stay beside you.
----





NARA PERIOD


(Prince Hozumi)

That rascal love
I have put away at home,
Locked in a coffer—
Here he comes, pouncing on me.
--



(Prince Ichihara)
(Composed at a banquet, wishing his father, Prince Aki, a long life.)

The flowering herbs of spring
Fade all too soon.
Be like a rock,
Changeless ever,
Noble father mine!
--



(Princess Hirokawa)

The sheaves of my love-thoughts
Would fill seven carts—
Carts huge and heavy-wheeled.
Such a burden I bear
Of my own choice.
--



(Lady Kasa)
(To Ōtomo Yakamochi)

the loneliness of my heart I feel as if I should perish
Like the pale dew-drop
Upon the grass of my garden
In the gathering shades of twilight.
-

If it were death to love,
I should have died—
And died again
One thousand times over.
--



(Fujiwara, Hirotsugu and a Young Lady
Poem sent with cherry-flowers to a young lady by Fujiwara Hirotsugu.)

Slight not these flowers!
Each single petal contains
A hundred words of mine


(Reply by the young lady)

Were these flowers broken off,
Unable to hold in each petal
A hundred words of yours?
--


Rather than that I should thus pine for you,
Would I had been transmuted
Into a tree or a stone,
Nevermore to feel the pangs of love.
--


I know well this body of mine
Is insubstantial as foam;
Even so, how I wish
For a life of a thousand years!
--


Though vanishing like a bubble,
I live, praying that my life be long
Like a rope of a thousand fathoms.
--


(A Monk of the Gango-ji Temple)

To what shall I liken this life?
It is like a boat,
Which, unmoored at morn,
Drops out of sight
And leaves no trace behind.
--


(Ato Tobira, a Young Woman)

Once—only once, I saw him in the light
Of the sky-wandering moon;
Now I see him in my dreams.
--


When mist rises on the seashore
Where you put in,
Consider it the breathing
Of my sighs at home.
----




PERIOD UNKNOWN


Love is a torment
Whenever we hide it.
Why not lay it bare
Like the moon that appears
From behind the mountain ledge?
--


The cloud clings
To the high mountain peak—
So would I cling to you, were I a cloud,
And you, a mountain peak!
--


If I leave you behind,
I shall miss you:
O that you were
The grip of the birchwood bow
I am taking with me!
--


Let no rain fall to drench me through;
I wear beneath my clothes—
The keepsake of my loved one.
--


When I take the koto, sobs break forth;
Can it be that in its hollow space
The spirit of my wife is hiding?
--


Though your season is not over,
Cherry-blossoms, do you fall
Because the love is now at its height
Of those who look on?
--


My love-thoughts these days
Come thick like the summer grass
Which soon as cut and raked
Grows wild again.
--


Though men say
An autumn night is long,
It is all too brief
For unloading my heart
Of all its love.
--


However long I wait for him,
My lord does not come,
When I look up to the plains of heaven,
The night hours have advanced.
Late at night, the storm beats,
And the snow-flakes falling on my sleeves
Are frozen while I wait and linger.
Now never will he come to me,
But I will meet my loved one later,
As vine meets vine.
So comforting my lonely heart,
With my sleeves I sweep our bed,
And as I cannot waking meet him,
May I meet him in my dream,
On this heavenly-perfect night!
--




The lofty mountains and the seas,
Being mountains, being seas,
Both exist and are real.
But frail as flowers are the lives of men,
Passing phantoms of this world..

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every single thing leads to another book. Japan’s new era name has been announced: the Reiwa Era will begin on May 1st. Such name appears in the Man’yōshū, the oldest collection of Japanese poetry which dates back to the late 700s. I've read several comments on the new era name, but that's another matter. Now I have a book to find.

April 1, 19

(Three days later)
Found it.

* Later on my blog.

[Nguyên Trang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dù trời nồm và mạng xã hội đã lấy đi gần như tất cả mọi cảm xúc của tôi, thì Vạn Diệp Tập cũng đã khơi dậy được từ đống tro tàn đó những ngọn lửa cuộc sống. Hay nói đúng hơn, xin cảm ơn là giữa trời nồm và tranh cãi, ta có Vạn Diệp Tập mà đọc.

Ở Vạn Diệp Tập có được cái mà rất ít cuốn sách có được. Cái thứ tinh túy nhất mà theo thời gian, con người đều ít nhiều mất đi. Cái mà Lưu Quang Vũ gọi là "giản đơn, chân thành, dễ hiểu". Tôi đã chán ngấy tất cả những khôn ngoan, hóm hỉnh, mưu mẹo. Thật tuyệt vời làm sao khi được trở lại với những thứ thành thật nhất thế này. Yêu anh lòng cháy bỏng/ Sống chết em không màng.

Mặc dù Nam Trân làm cuốn này siêu kỹ nhưng trong khuôn khổ một cuốn tuyển tập, không thể nào trọn vẹn được. Nhiều bài tôi thích trong Vạn Diệp Tập không thấy ở đây. Và trên thực tế thì rất ít bài ở đây có thể đứng một cách độc lập mà khơi dậy được cảm xúc hùng vĩ. Nhưng khi đứng chung với vạn diệp thế này, đúng là lần đâu tôi thấy câu nói "văn học là vũ khí" không phải ngoa dụ. Nó thật sự có thể là một lịch sự chân thật nhất, một niềm tự hào, một sức mạnh dân tộc. Ở Việt Nam có một tuyển tập nào tương tự không để tìm đọc nhỉ? Bà nội hay mẹ tôi thỉnh thoảng vẫn nói ra được một câu đỉnh cao mà tôi chưa từng nghe thấy, xuất phát từ dân gian. Chúng ta đã quá coi thường văn học, và do đó, mất đi gốc rễ, sức mạnh. Một cuốn sách thật sự làm tôi xúc động và tin rằng nếu có con, tôi sẽ cho nó đọc sách =)))

[Eadweard · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the Toko Mountain in Omi
There flows the Isaya, River of Doubt.
I doubt whether nowadays
You, too, still think of me?
----




(Prince Otsu and Lady Ishikawa)

Waiting for you,
In the dripping dew of the hill I stood,
-weary and wet
With the dripping dew of the hill.

- By the Prince


Would I had been, beloved,
The dripping dew of the hill,
That wetted you
While for me you waited.

- By the Lady
----



Tonight the autumn moon shines
The moon that shone a year ago,
But my wife and I who watched it then together
Are divided by ever-widening wastes of time.

When leaving my love behind in the Hikite mountains
Leaving her there in her grave,
I walk down the mountain path,
I feel not like one living.
----



(Lamenting his own fate as he was about to die in the land of Iwami)

All unaware, it may be,
That I lie in Kamo-yama,
Pillowed on a rock,
She is waiting now - my wife
Waiting for my return.
----



The great earth itself
Might be exhausted by digging,
But of love alone in this world
Could we never reach the end.
----



If the thunder rolls for a while
And the sky is clouded, bringing rain,
Then you will stay beside me.
----



Slight not these flowers!
Each single petal contains
A hundred words of mine.
----



How I waste and waste away
With love forlorn
I who have thought myself
A strong man

Rather than that I should thus pine for you,
Would I had been transmuted
Into a tree or a stone,
Nevermore to feel the pangs of love.
----



(Suffering from old age and prolongedillness, and thinking of his children)

So long as lasts the span of life,
We wish for peace and comfort
With no evil and no mourning,
But life is hard and painful.
As the common saying has it,
Bitter salt is poured into the smarting wound,
Or the burdened horse is packed with an upper load, Illness shakes my old body with pain
All day long I breathe and grief
And sigh throughout the night.
For long years my illness lingers,
I grieve and groan month after month,
And though I would rather die, I cannot,
and leave my children noisy like the flies of May. Whenever I watch them
My heart burns within.
And tossed this way and that,
I weep aloud.
----



(On rain)

Let no rain fall to drench me through;
I wear beneath my clothes
The keepsake of my loved one.
----



(On the koto)

When I take the koto, sobs break forth;
Can it be that in its hollow space
The spirit of my wife is hiding?
----



(Referring to the grass)

My love-thoughts these days
Come thick like the summer grass
Which soon as cut and raked
Grows wild again
----



(Referring to night)

Though men say
An autumn night is long,
It is all too brief
For unloading my heart
Of all its love
----



I will not comb my morning hair:
Your loving arm, my pillow,
Has lain under it

[Akemi G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems some cultures take poetry more seriously than others. When the Japanese people learned the writing system from the Chinese, one of the first books they produced was this giant anthology of poems (4500+ poems). Authors vary from emperors and courtiers to anonymous ordinary people. (The other thing they did was to write down the history: The Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters) I've read the whole thing in Japanese, and to this day, can recite some of them by heart. It gives me a great comfort to know that there were people who felt the same way I do hundreds of years ago.

By the way, I've also read some English poems, and while there are a few that are heartfelt and beautiful, most sound smart-ass to me. Perhaps the last part "to me" is critical; English is my second language, and if I've missed something, the fault is on me. But I can't help thinking that the popularity of foreign poems translated into English (not just Japanese, but think of Persian poems by Rumi, etc.) may be due to the boring nature of the old English poems.

cf. While many poems in Manyoshu are made by anonymous folks, the main editor of the anthology is believed to be Otomo no Yakamochi, 8th century courtier/scholar/poet. (Being a good poet was an expected quality for all courtiers in his days.)

[Brendan Coster · Rating 2 out of 5]

By far the most 'difficult' to read. You miss out on the depth from the original's with the translation, the word play just can't be replicated, and it'd take a poet to 'redo' them properly. And while this is arguable in any translation, I point to Royall who did a superb job in the Tale of Heike in getting the word play and multi-tiered language out from the original and into the english. Of course, you can't quite do what he did with a 31 syllable poem, so, maybe it's hopeless... still I believe it could be done better.

So, not a great translation.

But adding to that you are given 1000 poems between the unknown dark ages of japan and the Nara period. But they're all over, and there is very little background to each poem. Without the conveyance of the original and with very little history and with the near randomness of the material there was nothing to stand on. There was no story being developed (of course), but there was nothing to sink your teeth into. So, in respect to the book as presented, some pages I felt I was just reading and re-reading words -- bereft of all meaning.

It is also, presented poorly. Any history or information was supplied by the original annotator c.a. 750 AD.....

Anyways, a different translation, maybe with the original pre-heian period Japanese next to it for the sound and movement, and maybe with better context notes (as the Japanese language is nothing without context) this becomes readable.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming never: my review of each poem.

Canon. Corpus. Check.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poetry, much about love and nature. The date from about 750 to 850. But at the end are two heartbreaking longer poems about poverty and the death of a child: Dialog of the Destitute and untitled poem 904 by Yamanoue, with two equally touching envoys, or summary tanka. Instructive are multiple linked poems on the same topic--e.g. plum blossoms in spring--that highlight the differences among the poets; some are inspired, some derivative.

I don't know any Japanese and can't comment on the translation, but the resulting poems are well worth the time to read them slowly.

[Gwern · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moved to gwern.net.

[Mohammad Ali Shamekhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

این اشعار کوتاه ژاپنی بیشتر از آنکه خود چیزی داشته باشند، حیث اشاره گری و تصویری شدیدی دارند. کوتاهی موجب آن می شود که فکر سریع از این سر نخ رو سوی دیگر تصاویر و اندیشه ها کند. سادگی آن مسحور کننده است. ترجمه هم زبان خوبی دارد و در موارد زیادی شیرینی زبانی را می توان در آن دید.

در مقابل هر شعر نگارش ژاپنی آن با خوش خطی آمده است. اما صد افسوس که راز خط خوش ژاپنی بر من گشوده نیست و این بسی ناراحت کننده است. کاملا نی توان حس کرد حرف هایی که در این نگارش خاص ژاپنی نهفته است - خطی که می گویند ننوشتن ها و فاصله ها ( عدم و فاصله ) در آن نقش پررنگی در انتقال مفاهیم دارد.

[James Violand · Rating 1 out of 5]

To those who love the simple beauty of Japanese poetry, avoid this book. This translation is so poor and uneven, it reads like Yoda speaks. Some poems are so poorly interpretted, that you become baffled. Then there follows an explanation of the poem! Shouldn't that be written as a prelude? Ridiculous.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book of haiku has put me back on a poetic track I left 4 years ago. Simple poems of few words that open a vast world of feeling and thought. Single phrases so lovely addition can only mar them. It's a collection, but if you love haiku check it out.

[Bere Tarará · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colección esencial para acercarse a la tradición clásica japonesa, añoranza de la naturaleza

[literaryelise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone at home / feeling that my hair’s too long / tells me to bind it / But it’s as you saw it last / though now it’s a little tangled”

[Philip McCarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

1000 poems from more than a 1000 years ago makes for great bedtime reading. From a scholarly perspective, this book is a great introduction to the Manyoshu and the time period of the writing. It's also interesting to learn about how people used to interpret the Manyoshu in the late 1800s vs. the 1960s when this version was published. The vast majority of the poems in this book are by soldiers or travelers who have left their lovers or families behind and miss them greatly, which makes sense since travel took an immense amount of time back then. Another large portion of these poems deal with lamenting the death of someone close to the writer or the anonymity of death in a place far from home (as shown by the multiple poems about dead people on the side of the road). I'm not sure if this book just had a penchant for these kinds of poems or if it is indicative of the greater poetry found in the compiled works. On a lighter note, there were many poems celebrating love between two people, the natural world, or for the ruler of the time. There's a clear courtly bent in multiple of the poems. I personally resonated most with the ones dealing in extensive natural metaphor and waxing poetic about the nature of travel and the sights seen. The sheer slog of this book was a bit much, but with 1000 poems, not all of them are going to be keepers. I've copied a few of them down that I did particularly enjoy though. Basically this shows that we as humans have been experiencing the same emotions we have nowadays throughout our whole history all around the world. I do enjoy thinking about how these emotions were experienced and perceived historically and that was fun to consider while reading.

[Books on Asia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: This is the English version 対訳 or parallel translation. The cover is similar, if not the same, as the above, but this version was published by Kodansha International, not Kodansha USA, so may differ slightly. I could not find this exact version on Goodreads.

This book only includes 35 of the 4,500 or so poems in the Man'yōshū ("Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves") but they are important and well-known poems. Each tanka is rendered in Japanese kanji, romaji and English (translated by Ian Hideo Levy), and is foll0wed by an explanation by Ōoka Makoto, author of 'Oriori no Uta' his long-running column in the Asahi Shinbun. The full-page color illustrations by kiri-e (paper cut-out) artist Miyata Masayuki serve not only to give insight to the poems, but to force the reader to slow down and consider each verse before moving on to the next entry. As for myself, I find poetry addicting, and as soon as I finish one, my eye is anticipating the next, so I appreciated this visual device to allow me to linger over the delicate meanings and the moods of each entry. This is a book you'll want to keep for re-reading and reference.

[Damián Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

La primera y más importante recopilación de poesía japonesa (waka). Su título significa literalmente colección de la miríada de hojas y se cree que pudo haberse terminado de recopilar hacia el año 760 por Ōtomo no Yakamochi. Contiene unos 265 chōka, unos 4200 tanka (poemas cortos, de formato 5-7-5-7-7) y una pequeña cantidad de otras variedades. Está dividida de forma temporal en cuatro períodos: primero (630-672), segundo (672-710), tercero (710-733) y cuarto (733-760). Muchos de los poemas son anónimos, otros son dudosas atribuciones a poetas legendarios. De entre todos los autores compilados y los poemas antologados quiero destacar los siguientes: los de la Princesa Nukata; los cantares de viaje y las elegías de despedida a su esposa de Jitomaro de Kakinomoto; los poemas breves de Akajito de Iamabe; los largos poemas de corte social (enfatizando la situación de marginales y pobres) de Okura de Iamanoe; la Balada de Uráshima y la canción orgiástica de Mushimaro de Takajashi; el poema a su halcón perdido de Iakamochi de Ótomo; y los cantares de Chigami de Sano.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interest in early Japanese culture and literature began a few years ago after reading a fictional novel by Liza Dalby. What I loved in this piece of work was the attention paid to poetry. The Japanese used poetry as a normal way of communicating together, reflecting upon nature and the change of seasons to love and the yearning that can be a side-effect of it. So, upon finishing this fictional novel, I set out to discover more and in doing so, I discovered the Manyoshu.

The Manyoshu is the oldest poetry anthology of early Japan. The original consisted of 20 volummes, totaling in excess of 4,000 poems. This translation offers Western readers the chance to learn more about early Japanese culture by offering 1,000 of the poems. The selection, according to the preface of the anthology, was made by 3 factors:-
1. Their poetic excellence
2. Their role in revealing the Japanese national spirit and character
3. Their cultural and historical significance

This anthology truely is a delight. There is a very good introduction, in case the reader wishes to learn more about the history behind the poems, plus there are very useful footnotes as and when required, however they do not get in the way of the poetry itself. The poems are then divided into 4 sections, each one being a different period.

Personally, I have always preferred the shorter of the poems, as I think the way that the author is able to express such emotion through so few words is breathtaking. From this selection, one of my favourties is a beautiful love poem:-

"Love is a torment
Whenever we hide it.
Why not lay it bare
Like the moon that appears
From behind the mountain ledge?" (p.273)

To me, that is perfection. Simple yet the words shall haunt you and stay with you long after you close the covers. The best Japanese love poetry are often like this - filled with emotion despite the seemingly simplistic style, and often alluding to some part of nature as a way of expressing the sentiment. Culturally, this is because the Japanese were very superstitious regarding certain aspects of nature - for example, certain days were deemed to be auspicious (either good or bad) for travelling; the early Japanese court also had restricments of which officials could wear particular colours. The colours of their robes would even be dictated due to the changing of the seasons. Nature was an integral part of their life, and this comes across in the poetry of the time.

This translation is a brilliant way to get into early Japanese culture and life. After dipping into it, and enjoying it, you may want to go off and look for the Kokinoshu, another early Japanese anthology.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elegant and more complex than the translation can easily provide, this is a fair introduction to the Manyoshu. One difficultly with a translation such as this is that context is oftentimes lost, as well as historical relevance. This makes the poems a challenge to appreciate at times, though you can sometimes see cleverness between the response poems. If one thing is taken away from this collection is that the people so readily and effortlessly connect nature and their emotional state. Sometimes these are simple, other times they are subtle and require an understanding between shades of feelings. A good read, and important in the world literature sphere; I just wish there was more context.

[Aleksandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was so fascinating to read all these poems knowing (vaguely) how Japan would've been at these times, or at least with the information that has been gathered from historical sources. It was (and still is) fascinating to know how ,despite the statuses and social norms Japan would've held at these times, especially with richer families, their way of thinking is so similiar to ours. The Ladies longing for their Lord to return home is so similiar to our longing of love, and even the poem about a hawk written by Otomo Yakamochi shows a strong relationship between human and animal that many hold today with their dogs, cats and other beings: family. Really pretty and cool book!! :PP

[María Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le daría rating más alto, sin embargo por momentos la traducción, realizada por Antonio Cabezas García se hizo tediosa. La romanización de los términos japoneses también es muy cuestionable ("Jatsuse" por Hatsuse), por más de que García haya tenido la intención de acerca el idioma a un lector común; la realidad es que dentro de las notas podría haber agregado algo sobre la fonética japonesa y no hacer estas modificaciones. Quizás para el lector español no sea un problema, pero para mí como latina hasta las traducciones de las flores tuve que buscar (al menos en notas al pie aparecían los nombres originales).

[Dimitar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of great lil (and not so lil) poems in the Manyoshu, a lot of them were focused on the Imperial family and expressed their praise or gratitude of it, while that isn't necessarily my cup of tea, I could still appreciate the poetic allusions and allegory in them.

A part of the waka poems felt masterful in the technical aspect, but lacking depth of emotion, which I guess it's normal considering that waka didn't evolve to include that emotional aspect until a later stage, and the fact that the poems are translated.

Overall, happy I finally got to read this pillar of Japanese poetry. I really wish the entirety of it was available in English.

[Edgar Trevizo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nunca había abandonado un libro de poesía oriental antigua. Llegué hasta la mitad y no pude más. Algo pasó aquí: quizás el traductor no es muy bueno, o su selección falló. Quizás sea que son los primeros 5 libros del Man’yōshū y los posteriores sean mejores. No sé. Solo sé que hay una enorme cantidad de poemas dedicados a gobernantes, hiperbólicos y sin valor humano o espiritual alguno. Nadie los recuerda, a pesar de esos poemas. Aparte de estos, muchos más son pláticas entre cortesanos y príncipes, sin contacto con la verdadera realidad humana. Sus poemas son banales y planos. Fue una decepción. Buscaré otras traducciones.

[Mariam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn’t realized they were love poems and wasn’t interested in anything romantic. The introduction spoiled it more with all the information about illicit affairs and crossed lovers but still the poetry transported me to another country, season, time, from under tree to the shores of some foreign water and now I turn poetic myself because it did in some way move me. And that does count for much. So four stars.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a long read but its really great to read older love poetry to remind one that love poetry doesn't need to always be flowery. One of the poems in the collection more or less translated to "Boy when you get home we gonna go at it"

[Laura Tomas Avellana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leer poemas del Manyoshu es siempre una delicia… pensar que estás leyendo poesía japonesa del siglo VIII pero sentirla cercana y casi actual. De una belleza increíble. Si te interesan los haikus y los orígenes de la poesía breve japonesa, leer el Manyoshu. Lo disfrutarás

[John Fredrickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of poems felt uninspiring to me. They are a collection of wistful poems of expectation and longing, but are from many authors/sources, so there is no 'story' being told, and the sentiments expressed end up feeling very repetitive.

[Michael Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

They are small and simple and to the point world class love poems. What’s not to love?

They’re just really good poems. Through and through. Even in English the feelings and the ease with which their clarity comes through is very clear and rich with imagery, sensations and colors.

[Colin Myles · Rating 5 out of 5]

a beautiful collection of the earliest written poems from Japan.

[Matt Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loneliness, anxiety, loss, and insecurity all at least linger around the edges of these poems encompassing human relationships.