Our attention has been drawn to a useful resource in Japanese of poetry about Kyoto. It’s part of an extensive website called Japan Note, covering various aspects of history and culture as can be seen on its home page.

For 20 waka poems in Japanese about Kyoto, click here.

For 30 different tanka in Japanese about Kyoto, click here.

For 40 different haiku in Japanese about Kyoto, click here.

It would make an interesting translation project to turn those into English. As it happens, the poetry in translation group run by myself (John Dougill) is currently embarked on something very similar, with the intention of producing a chronological anthology of Kyoto literature down the ages. Strangely enough, this doesn’t appear to have been done even in Japanese. The only English publication that comes close is that by J. Thomas Rimer in 1995, which is seasonal rather than historical and covers the whole of Kyoto Prefecture rather than just the city itself. For a review of the book, please take a look at this page.