Saigyo

A fresh translation of the classical Buddhist poetry of Saigyō, whose aesthetics of nature, love, and sorrow came to epitomize the Japanese poetic tradition. Saigyō, the Buddhist name of Fujiwara no Norikiyo (1118–1190), is one of Japan’s most famous and beloved poets. He was a recluse monk who spent much of his life wandering and seeking after the Buddhist way. Combining his love of poetry with his spiritual evolution, he produced beautiful, lyrical lines infused with a Buddhist perception of the world. Gazing at the Moon presents over one hundred of Saigyō’s tanka—traditional 31-syllable poems—newly rendered into English by renowned translator Meredith McKinney. This selection of poems conveys Saigyō’s story of Buddhist awakening, reclusion, seeking, enlightenment, and death, embodying the Japanese aesthetic ideal of mono no aware—to be moved by sorrow in witnessing the ephemeral world.

Buddhist Poems of Solitude

Gazing at the Moon

William R Lafleur

Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyo captures the power of Saigyo's poetry and this previously overlooked poet's keen insight into the social and political world of medieval Japan. It also offers a fascinating look into the world of Japanese Buddhism prior to the wholesale influence of Zen.

The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyo

Awesome Nightfall

Pause, breathe, and savor the quiet beauty of Saigyō, one of Japan's most quintessential poets, in this celebration of nature and Buddhist insight. Born in the twelfth century during a time of great political upheaval and warfare, Saigyō made the unusual decision in his youth to resign from his respectable post as a guard to the emperor’s family and pursue a life of Buddhist renunciation, wilderness wandering, and poetry. Over the course of his lifetime, he became one of Japan’s most celebrated poets. Today, his spare poems of spiritual longing and aching identification with the natural world continue to inspire fathomless, ineffable emotion in readers all over the world. With 193 poems on 11 themes like the moon, journeys, mountain abodes, love, and the dreamlike world, Blossom Awakening reveals Saigyō as a spiritual seeker who gave his life to the artist’s path. Translators Peter Levitt and Kazuaki Tanahashi present their English renderings with the original Japanese text and offer commentary that illuminates the political, religious, and literary dimensions of Saigyō’s life and work.

Saigyo

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