The Year’s First Poetry Gathering Ceremony
On January 19th, the “Utakaihajimë no Gi”, or “Year’s First Poetry Gathering Ceremony”, was held at the Imperial Palace. This is an annual event, and while it has changed substantially its roots go back at least seven centuries. The core is that the Tennō sets a topic, people compose traditional 31-syllable waka poems on that topic, and those poems are declaimed in the presence of the Tennō. The details of the topic, who gets to compose, and how the poems are declaimed have changed a great deal, but the basic… Read More »The Year’s First Poetry Gathering Ceremony