Audio by Adam

This is a story about some of the most beautiful short poetry I have ever come across. Edited by the poet Jane Hirshfield (see “Given Sugar, Given Salt” elsewhere in this blog), it is a collection of short erotic haiku-like poems written by Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, who were part of the Japanese medieval court.  The themes – transience, love, loneliness, and erotic longing – are eternal, but the words come across both artful and vividly personal (not to mention steamy) across the centuries.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related posts:

• Alan Ginsberg Post-Mortem Tribute (VOA 1998)
• The Romance and Poetry of Space (VOA 1995)
• The Status of Women in Israel (NPR 1990)
• Karme Choling Tibetan Buddhist Community in Vermont
• Gary Snyder: Poet and Bio-regionalist (Earth Day 2009)

Tags: Buddhism, erotic, Jane Hirshfielf, Japan, Komachi, medieval Japan, Poetry, Women

This entry is filed under Arts, Buddhism, Poetry, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.