Word: waka
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...archaic imperial wedding lore under Palace Ritualist Osanaga Kanroji. His bride in hand, the prince was free to join his parents. Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagoko, at a heady gala: the annual poetry-reading contest. Fired by this year's contemporary topic (windows), an astounding 22,427 waka fanciers had submitted the stirrings of their muses. Eleven of the 15 winners were able to join the imperial family in the palace's drafty West Room to hear professional chanters drone the formal. 31-syllable verselets. The Emperor, who is above the burly of competition, had again delighted...
...event of Japan's literary season, the annual poetry party, went into its lyrical finale. Seated before a huge golden screen, Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako harkened approvingly to verse by 15 finalists chosen from a record 17,238 entrants trying their hand at the formal 31-syllable waka. Then they listened solemnly while their own poems were read. The imperial family does not compete in the contest itself, this year featuring the subject of "Clouds." Hirohito's effort, read five times...
Nagako's waka, read thrice, also lost something in translation...
...stern exception to this easygoing rule is 70-year-old Mrs. Waka Yamada, who looks on concubines in about the way that Carry Nation looked on saloonkeepers. Sometimes admitted to the courts as a "special attorney," Mrs. Yamada argues her cause eloquently. Last January she won a precedent-shattering acquittal for a wife who admitted having murdered her husband's concubine...