125 Waka of the Meiji Emperor

One book in Japanese, English and GermanThe aim of this project is to give as many people as possible access to the poems of the Meiji Tenno (emperor). One challenge we encountered was the language. That‘s why we decided to write four versions of each poem. Below the calligraphy, you will see the direct representation of the text in the original kanji (Chinese characters) and in katakana (the Japanese phonetic alphabet).On the opposite page, in the Latin alphabet, the Romanized form of the Japanese text is shown. This allows a reader lacking Japanese language skills to grasp the tone of the poem. Below this, you'll find the English and German translations.An effective approach to the poems is to read them aloud, ideally in the Japanese version, and to feel into what you hear for a few minutes. When the reverberation of the words has faded away, the moment of meditation is complete. Read more