Ikuko Atsumi & Kenneth Rexroth 
Women Poets of Japan [EPUB ebook] 

From early as the seventh century up to the present day, no other has had so many important women poets as Japan.

In this collection (originally published by The Seabury Press in 1977 as
The Burning Heart, Kenneth Rexroth and Ikuko Atsumi have assembled representative works of seventy-seven poets. Staring with the Classical Period (645-1604 A.D.), characterized by the
wanka and
tanka styles, followed by haiku poets of the
Tokugawa period (to 1867), the subsequent modern
tanka and
haiku poets, and including the contemporary school of free verse—Women Poets of Japan records twelve hundred years of poetic accomplishment. Included are biographical notes on the individual poets, an essay on Japanese women and literature, and a table of historical periods.

About the author

Poet-essayist Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) was a high-school dropout, disillusioned ex-Communist, pacifist, anarchist, rock-climber, critic and translator, mentor, Catholic-Buddhist spiritualist and a prominent figure of San Francisco’s Beat scene. He is regarded as a central figure of the San Francisco Renaissance and is among the first American poets to explore traditional Japanese forms such as the haiku.