Blossom Awakening: The Life and Poetry of Wandering Monk Saigyo

The essential introduction to Saigyō, one of Japan’s greatest and most enduring poets.

Born in the twelfth century during a time of great political upheaval and warfare, Saigyō made the shocking decision in his youth to resign from his respectable post as a guard to the emperor’s family and pursue a life of Buddhist renunciation, wilderness wandering, and poetry. Over his lifetime he became one of Japan’s most celebrated poets, and his aesthetics of spiritual longing and aching identification with the natural world left an indelible imprint on his country’s literary culture for centuries to come.

With 193 poems on 11 themes like the moon, journeys, mountain abodes, love, and the dreamlike world, Blossom Awakening collects Saigyō’s most poignant and impactful work, revealing him as a spiritual seeker whose perceptivity and insight remains an inspiration to this day. Translators Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt present the poems with their original Japanese text and provide an introduction and commentary that illuminate the political, religious, and literary dimensions of Saigyō’s life and work.