Machi Tawara sings praises of the simple poetry form she helped revive

Machi Tawara is credited with almost single-handedly reviving the form of poetry for a contemporary Japanese, and increasingly global, audience. emerged in the latter half of the eighth century as a shorter form of poetry, but eventually became the dominant style. The poems consist of five units in the pattern five-seven-five-seven-seven. The form fell out of favour for many years, but there was a revival at the turn of the 20th century. Recent times have seen a more contemporary spin on .

Born in 1962 in Osaka, Tawara graduated from Waseda University with a degree in Japanese literature. It was there that she began to experiment with . She continued to write after she started work at Hashimoto High School in Kanagawa Prefecture, where she stayed until 1989. Her 50-poem sequence won the 32nd Kadokawa Tanka Prize. It was later combined with other works, and published as in 1987. The book sold more than 2.6 million copies in Japan and 8 million copies worldwide; it also won the 32nd Modern Poets Association Award.

Exploring love, heartache and the end of an affair, the book has been celebrated for its combination of the ancient grace of the form with modern insight and wit. Ahead of the publication of a new edition of this month, Tawara talked to .

I dreamed of being a writer from the sixth grade. I think this was because I enjoyed reading books, from a very early age. I narrowed my writing interests down to poetry when I was about 20. My teacher at Waseda University was Yukitsuna Sasaki, who was a writer. I knew then that I wanted to be one too.