High-profile professional poet Kawano Yūko (24 July 1946–12 August 2010) stood in the forefront of Japanese post-war women tanka writers. An intensely personal writer, who always enlivened her work with events from her own life, she had a distinguished career spanning forty years. In addition to several thousand original tanka, she published books of essays and criticism. Kawano also taught tanka composition at colleges and on television while working as an editor, lecturer, and contest judge. She was married to scientist and poet Dr. Nagata Kazuhiro with whom she led the prestigious Kyoto-based association of contemporary tanka writers called ‘Tower’. Published in late 2008, The Maternal Line, Bōkei, was Kawano Yūko’s 13th tanka collection. The poems in it, written from 2005 to 2008, reflect her life over those years as a daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and poet. Embracing the light and shade of her world with her whole being, Kawano has... More > revealed that world to her readers through her tanka.< Less
