Lady Kasa

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Lady Kasa (笠女郎 Kasa no Iratsume) was a female Japanese waka poet of the early 8th century.

Little is known of her except what is preserved in her 29 surviving poems in the Man'yōshū; all these were love poems addressed to her lover Otomo no Yakamochi who compiled the Man'yōshū (and who is known to have had at least 14 other lovers, and would break up with her). Nonetheless, 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

^ "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.
^ pg 151 of Seeds in the Heart