Let's talk tanka

Abstract

I have a Japanese friend who lives in Osaka and we keep in touch via e-mail and meet up every couple of years. We collaborated on various publishing projects in the past and became good friends. He has a degree in English literature and a keen interest in classical music so we are never short of things to talk about. The last time we met I asked him what he was reading and he told me he was working his way through the poems of Norman MacCaig, one of the finest Scottish poets of his generation who died recently. I was pretty impressed with this and decided to return the favour. I immediately went out and bought One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, a great book, easy to dip into and ideal for trains. In case you are unfamiliar with Japanese literature, most of their poems are short, very short. Of the hundred, the one that I liked best was this:“You say, ‘I will come.’And you do not come.Now you say, ‘I will not come.’So I shall expect you.Have I learned to understand you?”When I read this for the first time my immediate thought was, “This is pure Bridget Jones!” Well, it was indeed written by a Japanese woman called Lady Otomo No Sakanoe who lived at the beginning of the 8th century. Imagine, some 1300 years before Bridget Jones. Remarkable or what?