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of women.jpg

of Women: 20 Japanese Female Poets / 20 Waka Poems

$19.95

Edited by Naoko Fujimoto

A collection of translated Japanese waka-poems, including text collage and haibun-style discourses on translation.

Of Women is a collection of translations of Japanese waka-poems from the seventh century to the twelfth century, featuring twenty female poets from this period, when Japanese women’s literature flourished. This book includes poems by famous writers from the era, such as Sei Shonagon (The Pillow Book) and Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji), and introduces some lesser-known female poets as well. 

Waka compacts much information in a short form: words with double meanings, unfamiliar phrases, habits foreign to non-Japanese speakers, and hidden historical backgrounds. Direct translations would fail to capture the author’s full intent, so Of Women takes several approaches to capture the original sensory images, including text collage and haibun, short essays that provide historical context and introduce the author before each waka.

Edited by Naoko Fujimoto

A collection of translated Japanese waka-poems, including text collage and haibun-style discourses on translation.

Of Women is a collection of translations of Japanese waka-poems from the seventh century to the twelfth century, featuring twenty female poets from this period, when Japanese women’s literature flourished. This book includes poems by famous writers from the era, such as Sei Shonagon (The Pillow Book) and Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji), and introduces some lesser-known female poets as well. 

Waka compacts much information in a short form: words with double meanings, unfamiliar phrases, habits foreign to non-Japanese speakers, and hidden historical backgrounds. Direct translations would fail to capture the author’s full intent, so Of Women takes several approaches to capture the original sensory images, including text collage and haibun, short essays that provide historical context and introduce the author before each waka.

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About the Editor

Naoko Fujimoto was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan, and studied at Nanzan Junior College. She was an exchange student and received a BA and MA from Indiana University. She is the author of the poetry collections We Face The Tremendous Meat On The Teppan, Where I Was Born, and Glyph:Graphic Poetry=Trans. Sensory, as well as four chapbooks. She is associate and translation editor of RHINO and translation editor of Tupelo Quarterly. She organizes an online community at Working On Gallery and is a Bread Loaf Translation full scholarship recipient and the 2023 Visiting Teaching Artist at the Poetry Foundation.

advanced praise

““Unwavering, forlorn, eternal.” — Ms. Magazine, on “The Best Poetry of 2025 and 2026”

“Of Women gathers the poems of twenty Japanese women, many unnamed, from the 7th to 12th centuries, who wove longing, politics, beauty, and defiance into the compact form of waka. Fujimoto makes brilliant use of a ‘thick’ approach, contextualizing her elegant translations with haibun-style reflections and visual art that both honor and explode the forms of the originals. In these pages, forgotten voices are reclaimed and reimagined, speaking with clarity and grace to our time.” — Geoffrey Brock

Format: Paperback
Published: June 2026
ISBN: 9781961209572