Remember the One Hundred People, One Poem Each? Well, *deep breath* -- I've finally done what I've been noodling with for a year now, and self-published a new edition.

Here's the blurb and front cover:


"Around 1235, Japanese poet and scholar Fujiwara no Teika compiled for his son’s father-in-law a collection of one hundred poems by one hundred poets. Within its chronological summary of six centuries of Japanese literature, Teika arranged a poetic conversation that ebbs and flows through a variety of subjects and styles. The collection became the exemplar of the genre—a mini-manual of classical poetry, taught in the standard school curriculum and used in a memory card game still played during New Years.

One Hundred People, One Poem Each contains the best that classical Japanese poetry has to offer—here presented in a new verse translation."


(Cover image is a painting by Katsushika Hokusai, as he's usually known now, of Mt. Fuji with a smoke dragon.)


The book text isn't quite the same as the post linked above -- for one thing, I've corrected several translations where I realized I'd misconstrued something,* and the commentaries have been smoothed out with a power sander. For another, the paper edition is attractively laid out** and comes with an index. The ePub/Nook edition is all that (with adjustments for the medium), minus the index but with the added bonus of working hyperlinks. The Mobi/Kindle edition ditto, except it doesn't have the kanji texts or quite as attractive a layout due to formatting limitations.

Or, if you prefer, you can read the draft post linked above, which will remain up permanently -- and which, after all, is still the same for at least 80% of the poems.

A book preview is here (click Preview under the cover image ETA: fixed to now preview the whole book). The paper edition can be purchased in the same place,*** the ePub edition for Nooks and most other readers can be ordered through B&N, and the mobi edition for Kindles through Amazon. (I'm working on Google Books and eventually other outlets, but those aren't in place yet.)

Also, I'll have a handful of paper editions with me at WFC, so I suppose I count as another sales outlet.

I'm going to avoid going all promo all the time, but I will post an update on further availabilities (and edit this post).


* Interestingly, not always a verb. Even more interesting, the most messed-up translations were also the most awkward in English, and fixing the meaning always made the poetry better.

** Complete with Decorative Kanji^TM (装飾的な漢字).

*** The paper edition is currently only through Lulu because the price-break for making it available to other distributors (such as Amazon) makes the cover price ridiculously high for such a slim volume. If you live in a country Lulu either doesn't ship to or charges Way Too Much to ship to, contact me directly and we'll work something out.

---L.