Women Poets of Japan
I can give myself to her
In her dreams
Whispering her own poems
In her ear as she sleeps beside me
Yosano Akiko (1878-1942)
I leave all the scarlet flowers
For the woman I love
And hiding my tears from her
I pick
The flower of forgetfulness.
Yamakawa Tomiko (1879-1909)
I shall hide myself
within the moon of the spring night
after I have dared to reveal
my love to you.
Chino Masako (1880-1946)
In 1900 Yosano Akiko went to Tokyo where she studied poetry with Yosano Hiroshi (Tekkan), who considered himself the leader of the new waka poetry (tanka) movement. She married him. For a time, they were involved in a maison a trois with a young woman, Yamakawa Tomiko, whom they both loved deeply. After a few years, Tomiko died of tuberculosis. She left one book, Koi-Goromo (The Garment of Lovemaking), written in collaboration with Yosano Akiko and Chino Masako.
