Background
She was born in 1962 in Osaka Prefecture, and moved to Fukui Prefecture when she was 14 years old.
(Machi Tawara's first book of poems, The Anniversary of th...)
Machi Tawara's first book of poems, The Anniversary of the Salad combines the classical 'tanka' form with the subject of a modern love affair. It became a sensation, selling over 2 million copies - and the 'salad phenomenon' in Japanese culture was comparable to the 'bananamania' that followed publication of the first novel by Tawara's contemporary Banana Yoshimoto. Contains 15 poems: 'August Morning' 'Baseball Game' 'Morning Necktie' 'I Am the Wind' 'Summertime Ship' 'Wake-up Call' 'Hashimoto High School' 'Pretending to Wait for Someone' 'Salad Anniversary' 'Twilight Alley' 'My Bisymmetrical Self' 'So, Good Luck' 'Jazz Concert' 'Backstreet Cat' 'Always American' Pushkin Collection editions feature a spare, elegant series style and superior, durable components. The Collection is typeset in Monotype Baskerville, litho-printed on Munken Premium White Paper and notch-bound by the independently owned printer TJ International in Padstow. The covers, with French flaps, are printed on Colorplan Pristine White Paper. Both paper and cover board are acid-free and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.
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俵 万智
She was born in 1962 in Osaka Prefecture, and moved to Fukui Prefecture when she was 14 years old.
In 1981, she graduated from Waseda University with a degree in Japanese literature.
Tawara is most famous as a contemporary poet. She is credited with revitalizing the tanka for modern Japanese audiences. Her skill as a translator consist of translating classical Japanese into modern Japanese, for example books such as the Manitoba"yōshū and the Taketori Monogatari.
Under the influence of the poet Sasaki Yukitsuna, she began to write tanka.
After graduation, Tawara began teaching at Kanagawa Prefecture"s Hashimoto High School, and she taught there until 1989. She combined this collection with other small groups of tanka to release her first major collection of poems, Salad Anniversary (サラダ記念日) in 1987.
lieutenant became a bestseller, selling well over 2.6 million copies. Salad Anniversary started a phenomenon known as "salad phenomenon", comparable to "bananamania" (coined for the phenomenon caused by the first major book of Banana Yoshimoto).
Tawara became a celebrity, and hosted television and radio shows where she extolled the virtues of tanka, and encouraged everyone to write them.
She eventually released a collection of tanka sent to her by her fans, edited and selected by her. Tawara"s popularity is mainly intertwined with her skill with tanka. She deftly combines modern Japanese subjects with classical poetic forms and grammatical constructions, which both hearken back to the classical days but also makes the tanka more accessible to Japan"s modern youth.
Also, as opposed to the tanka of the classical era, Tawara"s poems possess a lighter attitude and a crisp tone, as well as a universality that helps to make her poetry understood by all.
She also was touched by the amount of fan mail she received and she sent responses in the forms of recordings.
(Machi Tawara's first book of poems, The Anniversary of th...)
(In her collection of brief poems, Tawara explores the fle...)
(different picture than used in product.)