Alan (1934 -) has been writing tanka poems since 1968: this was his first: Shipwrecked leaf steers to avoid a sucking drain. Red hawthorn...

A translator rather than an original writer, Arthur Waley (1889-1966) achieved both academic and popular acclaim. He was the first to...

Arthur Waley was fluent in both Chinese and Japanese, and translated verse and drama in both languages into English. Despite never...

James Kirkup (1918 – 2009) was an English poet, academic and translator. He spent 30 years of his working life in Japan, teaching English...

The debate continues among tanka writers – how important is the 31-syllable length? How important is the length of each of the five...