Lady Kasa

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Lady Kasa (or Kasa no Iratsume) was a female Japanese waka poet of the early 700s. Little is known of her except what is preserved in her 29 surviving poems in the Manyoshu; all these were love poems addressed to her lover Otomo no Yakamochi who compiled the Manyoshu (and who is known to have had at least 14 other lovers, and would break up with her). None the less, her love poems would make her famous and inspire a later generation of female poets like Izumi Shikibu or Ono no Komachi. [1]

[edit] Poetry

Rōmaji English
wa ga yado no
yujagekusa no
shiratsuyu no
kenugani moto na
omoyuru kamo
In the loneliness of my heart
I feel as if I should perish
Like the pale dew-drop
Upon the grass of my garden
In the gathering shades of twilight. [2]

[edit] References

  • pg 141 of Woman poets of Japan, 1977, Kenneth Rexroth, Ikuko Atsumi, ISBN 0-8112-0820-6; previously published as The Burning Heart by The Seabury Press.
  • pg 151-152, 175-176 of Seeds in the Heart
  1. ^ "The entranced eroticism of her poems to Yakamochi would be imitated by the great women poets of the 9th and 10th Centuries, notably Izmi Shikibu and Ono no Komachi." Women poets of Japan.
  2. ^ pg 151 of Seeds in the Heart

[edit] External link