Poetic diary

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Poetic diary, or Japanese poetic diary, is an English term coined by the Princeton University scholar/translator Earl Miner in his book, Japanese Poetic Diaries. In Japan, poetic diaries ("uta nikki" in Japanese) date back to Ki no Tsurayuki's Tosa Nikki compiled in roughly 935. Traditionally, composed of a series of poems held together by prose sections, the poetic diary has often taken the form of a pillow book or a travel journal. Since World War II, Beat Generation writers in the United States such as Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Philip Whalen, and Joanne Kyger, as well as post-beat writers such as Andrew Schelling and Michael Rothenberg have studied and written in western-style poetic diary form.

[edit] See also

• Poetic journal
• Pillow book
• Art diary

[edit] References

• "A Darkness of Heart" A Hank Glassman essay on Japanese literary tradition.
• The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature. Defines Nikki (Nikki Bungaku)