June 12, 2011

Waka+artwork - Saigyo


Having read something about Saigyo, I remembered a artwork I did some time ago for Saigyo's waka. Saigyo wrote this wake to express his wavering thought when he became a priest, leaving behind all his secular life.

Waka has more words than haiku, and that makes it rather difficult to add artwork like I do to haiku. More words means that waka more or less says all. Adding artwork often become redundant, making it difficult to maintain equality between poem and artwork.
Nevertheless, I tried, and here it is.

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Returned from Tokyo last night. During to and from Tokyo, I read an ebook titled "The Paris Wife" by Paula Mclain. It is a story about Hemingway and his wife, seen from the wife's point of view. Interesting reading, and I felt the four-hour trip one way much shorter.

3 comments:

Svenja said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Svenja said...

Hi,
I would like to know what is this poem by Saigyo?
I research the calligraphy of "The spring wind" but I don't find in the web...can you help me please?
best regards,
Svenja

kuni_san said...

Literal translation is like this:
I am leaving the Capital for good.
I thought I had left the worldly concerns and attachments, but I still feel some remain.