The Hyakunin Isshu, in particular the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, is a collection of 100 poems by 100 different poets. About 750 years ago, the poet Fujiwara no Sadaie (also known as Teika) selected them. They are fairly chronologically ordered from the seventh through the thirteenth centuries. The poems are all ‘waka’ (now called ‘tanka’). Waka are five-line poems of 31 syllables, arranged as 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. The simplicity and beauty of the poems is still very much appreciated in Japan and abroad.

The Hyakunin Isshu Google Earth project is particularly interesting in that each poem is linked to a beautiful website that provides extensive additional resources for appreciating the poetry.

About the Contributor...

Hetty Litjens

“I learned a few languages and enjoy entering uncharted territory. I am in early retirement and it feels as if my life is beginning for real just now. Google Earth gives you the possibility to enter the backyards of other cultures”

“I am infatuated with these poems myself.

Their charm is that they express the feelings, emotions, hopes, fears, happiness and sadness of real people living about a thousand years ago. We see the world through their eyes. Their observations become ours. In Japan and everywhere people are still enjoying the beauty of the cherry blossoms. The poems are short, compact, have puns and double meanings, everything to make them interesting even now. They connect life of a thousand years ago with our life, with Japanese history, culture and nature. School children in Japan are still playing the Hyakunin card game. Books continue to be written about them. And this can go on for another thousand years.”

This incredible collection of 100 poems by 100 different poets was developed by Hetty Litjens, who also developed the Lit Trip for Traveling With P.G. Wodehouse.

.*The author of this Lit Trip maintains an external download site which is continually under revision. To download the latest revision click the View in Google Earth link on this page.