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A title from The Old School Press Twelve poems from the Manyoshu Twelve love poems translated from the Japanese |
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About the book The original plan for Twelve Poems from the Manyoshu was for a collection of large woodcuts by renowned Japanese woodcut artist Naoko Matsubara inspired by a dozen poems from the Manyoshu (a collection of some thousands of poems dating from the Nara period) with translations of the poems from the Japanese by Clare Pollard and Penny Boxall. However, a trunk containing hundreds of sheets of Japanese hand-made paper, many printed with Naoko's images by Alan Flint, was 'lost' in transit from Canada by FedEx. You can read about that dreadful affair and Fedex's incompetence here. This slender item is all that remains of that project: the twelve translations, each appearing on a single page, with a small woodcut by Matsubara on the title page.
About the edition The poems, title page, and colophon are printed on folded sheets of a fine paper. The sheets are sewn in a style similar to Japanese four-hole binding, with a hikkake paper which we bought from the Echizen paper makers on a visit to Japan way back in 2012. There are 40 copies of which some are for sale at £40 plus shipping.
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