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The aim of this paper is to analyse the new perspectives on the locus amoenus put forward by contemporary women poets in Ireland, in particular those by the female authors included in the anthology Our Shared Japan, edited by Irene De Angelis and Joseph Woods (2007). This paper argues that these writers provide alternatives to traditional pastoralism that trigger new reflections on women’s identities and subjectivities. As Donna L. Potts asserts, some constitutive aspects of the pastoral tradition are “the relationship between nature and human nature, and between the present and the mythicised past, the motif of transformation, etc.” (9). These aspects will be scrutinised in the context of travel to the new, exotic space of Japan. The alterity that the poetic voices meet with in their travel provides them with new perceptions of themselves and their affective life in relation to the environment. This renegotiation of identity is mostly made through the body, which becomes a tool for knowledge and communication. The heterotopia (Foucault) of the trip, therefore, provides the perfect space for the poetic subjects to interact, change and reflect about their identity, their sense of belonging or alienation and the impact of travel on their emotional life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the innovative use of AI computer algorithms in the creation of tanka, a form of Japanese poetry. From the recent forays into computer-generated poetry in Japan, I look at two computer programs in particular: the instant tanka generator "Inu-zaru," created by Sasaki Arara, and the "gūzen tanka" Twitter bot by programmer Inaniwa. These programs engender new paradoxical models of technology-mediated authorship and reading, whereby human agency is at once subtracted from the composition process while also being presupposed as a necessary component in the participant reader. Such forms of reading and writing shed new light on theoretical matters such as the death of the author even as they pose intractable questions concerning international copyright conventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhang Ruoxu's poem "Chunjiang huayue ye," reached Japan and Korea in the anthology Tangshi xuan compiled by the Ming dynasty scholar Li Panlong. In the mid-Edo period, under the influence of the "Kobunjigaku" (Ancient Rhetoric School) represented by Ogyū Sorai, the Tangshi xuan anthology enjoyed a phase of great popularity and became the widest-read Tang poetry work at the time. Because "Chunjiang huayue ye" was included in Tangshi xuan , it was also widely read. Many versions of Tangshi xuan containing abundant commentaries on "Chunjiang huayue ye" were published in Japan; most of these focus on art appreciation and comment on the poem in considerable depth. China, Japan, and Korea also produced many response poems and imitations of "Chunjiang huayue ye." Of these, the Chinese imitations were closest to the original work, the Japanese ones had greater ideological depth and echoed the commentaries on the poem, and the Korean ones were all rhymed response poems that were integrated into Korean culture over time. As a literary classic, "Chunjiang huayue ye" transcended its original era and at the same time broke the barriers of space, becoming world literature appreciated by people in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a set of 9,035 salaryman senryū poems over an eighteen-year period (1990-2007) in order to track salaryman reactions to workplace transition from an organizational behavioralist perspective. Major findings include: (i) the number of submissions and votes for the major poetry competition, Salaryman Senryū, have been falling since 1994, suggesting a decline in shared salaryman mentality; (ii) there has been a shift in the relative importance of broad themes, so that the workplace as a category of senryū poems is of less centrality in 2007 than it was in 1990; (iii) within the workplace category, (negative) interpersonal relations, especially with supervisors, still dominate; and (iv) workstyle is also a strong subtheme, with workers showing more interest in work processes than actual work conditions. The analysis also shows that the years 1996 and 1997 are a watershed where poems shift from a more jocular to strident tone. The overall implication of the study is a potential breach of the social contract between Japanese employers and regular employees, which will require the assiduous application of supportive employment practices (SEP) in order to ensure a high level of employee performance and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irisawa Yasuo (b. 1931) is one of the most theoretical and experimental poets that postwar Japan has produced. His poetry is highly individual; its themes and techniques place it firmly in the mainstream of contemporary international poetry. Like T. S. Eliot, Irisawa insists on the impersonality of the poet in creative expression. The point of his work is arrived at through implication, through the allusiveness contained in language; in language games reminiscent of James Joyce, and echoes from past time reminiscent of Eliot's work. Irisawa creates ambivalent images tied to the theme of mortality. This paper explores the variety of his narrative techniques, his creation of myths, his use of satire and even nonsense poetry. It considers the theory of the restructuring of language he expounds in Memorandum on the Structure of Poetry: if words are divorced from their daily usage, they may be joined together in new ways to create 'a meaning beyond meaning'. Irisawa does this in abstract conceptions filled with references and allusions to existing literature, as we see in My Izumo, a poem about spiritual identification with the past, which alludes to ancient Japanese works such as Izumo Fudoki and the Kojiki. This article shows how Irisawa's work exemplifies a dominant trend in modern Japanese poetry: the denial of meaning as it is ordinarily interpreted and in its place the use of language to create abstract visions which contain a 'meaning beyond meaning' - Irisawa's central thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the textual transformation of noblewomen/poets such as Izumi Shikibu into yūjo or courtesans and bodhisattvas. In trying to make sense of this remarkable reconfiguration, it looks at the many contending Buddhist discourses that shaped medieval texts. It argues that while the practice of poetry, in the hands of male poets, becomes a revered michi which is seen as being concomitant with the Buddhist Way, the noblewoman's poetry is not granted the same status. Women are seen as inherently sinful and lustful and hence their poetry cannot be easily assimilated to the goal of enlightenment. It is by recasting the noblewoman as yūjo , thereby foregrounding and indeed exaggerating her sexuality, that medieval texts, drawing on tantric and other practices, are able to salvage both the noblewoman and her poetry . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the changing image of the city in the poetry, prose and critical essays of the free verse poet Hagiwara Sakutarō (1886-1942). Sakutarō's growing disillusionment with Japan's modernisation and slavish imitation of Western models is reflected in changes in his poetic representations of the city, from a modern, sophisticated utopia, through the liberating home of the crowd, and the symbol of the existential despair of modern man, to the hallucination of a fevered imagination. The progressive disenchantment with the city in Sakutarō's poetry is accompanied by a corresponding rise in his estimation of the countryside. We can also see the city as a metaphor for modernity and the West on the one hand, and the countryside a trope for Japan and tradition on the other. In calling for a fusion of elements derived from both Western and Japanese culture Hagiwara Sakutarō sought to negotiate a distinctive Japanese modernity in the interwar period, but was, in the end, profoundly disappointed with the colourless intellectual desert he saw emerging from the blend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The jindai moji (神代文字—"characters of the Age of the Gods") are pseudocharacters (疑字: "giji") created in the early modern period, which purport to be an ancient Japanese writing script. One of the most famous examples of literature written in the jindai moji is the epic poem Hotsuma Tsutae, which is regarded as an account of the development of medieval mythology in the early modern age. It includes tales of evil lords known as the hatare (rendered as 魔王 in Kanbun), who bring chaos to the land and are vanquished by a divine army led by gods. Ultranationalists in early modern Japan enthusiastically embraced these jindai moji writings. This article examines the significance of the divine battles in the early modern jindai moji literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights a session at the Emily Dickinson International Society's 2007 Conference in Japan which examined the ways in which poet Emily Dickinson was drawn to the exotic culture of the Far East. Cristanne Miller presented her paper entitled "1860: Emily Dickinson's Year at Sea." Miller has noted that the opening of Japan to the West in the late 1850s very closely followed Dickinson's own extended travel and closely preceded her most productive period of poetic output.

This article highlights the last plenary session at the Emily Dickinson International Society's 2007 Conference in Japan which offered different perspectives on confluences of eastern and western cultures in relation to Emily Dickinson. Rebecca Copeland presented her paper entitled "An Unlined Robe of Splash-Patterned Silk: The Language of Dress in Japanese Women's Writing."

This article highlights the session "Dickinson and Spiritual Practices," at the Emily Dickinson International Society's 2007 Conference held in Japan. British scholar Linda Freedman considered Dickinson's use of the cocoon in Fr1107 as a metaphoric replacement for the Biblical image of the veil. This article highlights the papers presented by poet Kelly Sue Lynch and Emily Dickinson specialist Jane Donahue Eberwein.

The article examines the connections between Emily Dickinson's poetry and Japanese aesthetics. According to the author, Dickinson's poetic practices share characteristics of Japanese visual art and cultural ceremonies that are also the foundations of Japanese haiku poetry. The author focuses on two haiku concepts, brevity and ma, in relation to Dickinson's poetry and how it treats reality and imagination.

This essay investigates the circulation of Oscar Wilde's prose and poems in Japan from the late Meiji period to the end of Taisho period,1 examining the diverse Japanese readings and adaptations of Wilde: a dangerous socialist, a modern poet, a sentimental humanist and essayist, a decadent aesthete, and a martyr to beauty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights Professor Toshikazu Niikura's paper which was presented at the Emily Dickinson International Society's 2007 conference held in Japan. The report places poet Emily Dickinson alongside great woman writers of both West and East. Among the great woman writers of the East is Higushi Ichiyo.

This article highlights the session "Code, Communication, Cognition," at the Emily Dickinson International Society's 2007 Conference held in Japan. Poetry scholar James Guthrie presented his paper "Lost in Transcription: Failed Communication in There's a Certain Slant of Light." Sabine Silke presented a thoughtful analysis that urged appreciation for multiplicity in interpretation.

The corpus of haikai (haiku) poetic material produced from the early until the latter part of the nineteenth century in Japan has been largely dismissed as unliterary since Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). In particular scholars have avoided the study of the poetic practice known as tsukinami haikai, a form of poetic competition. By examining a specific tsukinami haikai text as well as looking at the process of tsukinami haikai competitions, I argue that they had an important pedagogical and cultural value. The poets who composed poems for tsukinami haikai competitions gained the education necessary to read Masaoka Shiki's arguments in favor of a 'literary poetry'. In addition the vocabulary that they learned from tsukinami haikai was 'universal' and thus transcended local identities. Tsukinami haikai is important for understanding the cultural history of nineteenth century Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study disscusses typical structures and forms of the Japanese traditional literature, trying to dwell from a synthetical point of view upon the specific poetic dimension of the Nippon prose, and brings forth, in support of its hypotheses, analytical insights into several works confined to the area mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the nature of mobile phone text messaging, or 'txting', in the context of a discourse of love. It draws links between the txt message and the much older, revered form of love messaging, Japanese tanka poetry. In cutting across both a historical and technological divide, it seeks to elucidate a more subtle understanding of how text messaging - from a literary perspective - plays its part in amorous exchange and argues how it has the capacity to enable individuals to affirm their own private thoughts, feelings and anxieties. Taking a cue from Michel Foucault's late work, concerned with the philosophical precept of 'care of the self', the article argues that these differing forms of exchange - as 'tender' technologies of the self and intersubjectivity - go beyond any one medium or age of media. Aspects of our relationships are worked out in the silent confines of being alone with text and, in the case today, with text messaging, making for the potential of a new poetics of time and space. While we cannot free ourselves from the lover's code or discourse, there is the potential for an affirmation of our part in its production, which prompts a question about how we might go on to research the currently missing archive of text messaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]