Download or read book Only Companion written by and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2006-11-14 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by court princesses, exiled officials, Zen priests, and recluses, the 150 poems translated here represent the rich diversity of Japan’s poetic tradition. Varying in tone from the sensuous and erotic to the profoundly spiritual, each poem captures a sense of the poignant beauty and longing known only in the fleeting experience of the moment. The translator has selected these five-line tanka—one of the great traditional verse forms of Japanese literature—from sources ranging from the classical imperial anthologies of the eighth and tenth centuries to works of the early twentieth century.