Japanese Literary Awards

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Chōkū Prize ちょうくうしょう

Edition 51 (2017)

Tanka

Winners

5 people
Yoshinori Hashimoto はしもと よしのり award

A tanka collection by Yoshinori Hashimoto, gathering poems on late-life daily experience, illness, memories of war, and attention to society in a calm but deeply felt voice.

Accepting old age, the poems sing affection for what is seen and touched.

249 pages
tankaold ageillnessmemories of war
Takayuki Saegusa さえぐさ たかゆき nominee

A tanka collection by Takayuki Saegusa based on magazine serial poems and journal work, with poems on hometown, literary museum work, family, and social change.

Through cherry blossoms in different places, hometown and the present overlap.

175 pages
tankahometowncherry blossomscontemporary tanka
Takako Hanayama はなやま たかこ nominee

A tanka collection by Takako Hanayama. It gathers everyday scenes and seasonal shifts in textured language with a touch of humor, placing subtle emotion behind quiet observation.

Like wind rising under a clear sky, familiar scenes reveal unexpected expressions in this collection.

241 pages
tankaeveryday scenesseasonsobservationhumor
Yasuki Fukushima ふくしま やすき nominee

Yasuki Fukushima’s twenty-ninth tanka collection centers on mourning for friends, poets, and writers, condensing personal history and postwar literary memory into poems addressed to the dead.

Calling the names of the dead, the voice of mourning takes the form of tanka.

148 pages
tankamourningmemorypostwar literaturevoices to the dead
Hiroshi Yoshikawa よしかわ ひろし nominee

A tanka collection by Hiroshi Yoshikawa, gathering work from 2012 to 2015. Poems on post-disaster society, Kyoto landscapes, family, and memory unfold with quiet critical force.

Human memory and social time pass through landscapes a bird might have seen.

189 pages
tankaafter FukushimaKyotomemorysocial critique