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This remarkable collection gives a new richness and depth to our understanding of traditional Japanese poetry, revealing as it does the significance, both aesthetic and political, of the learned poetry written in Chinese by two late Tokugawa poets, Yanagawa Seigan and his wife Kōran, famous in their time for their poetry, painting, and calligraphy. The poems themselves, here rendered into elegant and forthright translations by Chaves, are accompanied by a masterful essay by Fraleigh concerning their lives and the increasingly tumultuous times in which they lived. To read and enjoy these poems is a fresh and bracing experience, allowing the reader to enter a world far different from the more familiar waka and haiku traditions, filled with a sense of a larger poetic and philosophic world that belongs to all of East Asia. -- J. Thomas Rimer, coeditor of <i>The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama</i> Fraleigh’s meticulous introduction engagingly frames the lives and work of this unusual husband and wife pair of Sinitic poets. Chaves’ translations bring the freshness, authenticity, and originality of their poems to life. Anyone with a heart for poetry will find two new and wonderful friends here. -- Sonja Arntzen, University of Toronto This volume, along with Burton Watson's classic Kanshi translations, constitutes the finest translations of poetry written in classical Chinese by Japanese poets. The introduction and preface immerse the reader in the cultural history surrounding the lives of Seigan and Koran, perfect preparation for the literary feast that follows in the form of 195 exquisite poems. A profound aesthetic experience. -- David K. Schneider, author of <i>Confucian Prophet: Political Thought in Du Fu's Poetry, 752-757 </i>

This remarkable collection gives a new richness and depth to our understanding of traditional Japanese poetry, revealing as it does the significance, both aesthetic and political, of the learned poetry written in Chinese by two late Tokugawa poets, Yanagawa Seigan and his wife Kōran, famous in their time for their poetry, painting, and calligraphy. The poems themselves, here rendered into elegant and forthright translations by Chaves, are accompanied by a masterful essay by Fraleigh concerning their lives and the increasingly tumultuous times in which they lived. To read and enjoy these poems is a fresh and bracing experience, allowing the reader to enter a world far different from the more familiar waka and haiku traditions, filled with a sense of a larger poetic and philosophic world that belongs to all of East Asia. -- J. Thomas Rimer, coeditor of <i>The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama</i>

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Jonathan Chaves is professor of Chinese at the George Washington University. His many books include Every Rock a Universe: The Yellow Mountains and Chinese Travel Writing (2013), winner of the American Literary Translators Association’s Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. Matthew Fraleigh is associate professor of East Asian literature and culture at Brandeis University. He has published New Chronicles of Yanagibashi and Diary of a Journey to the West: Narushima Ryūhoku Reports From Home and Abroad (2010) and Plucking Chrysanthemums: Narushima Ryūhoku and Sinitic Literary Traditions in Modern Japan (2016).

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