Poetic diary

Ki no Tsurayuki

Poetic diary (歌日記 uta nikki) is a Japanese literary genre, dating back to Ki no Tsurayuki's Tosa Nikki, compiled in roughly 935. The English term poetic diary was used by the Princeton University scholar/translator Earl Miner in his book, Japanese Poetic Diaries. Traditionally, composed of a series of poems held together by prose sections, the poetic diary has often taken the form of a pillow book or a travel journal. Since World War II, Beat Generation writers in the United States such as Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Philip Whalen, and Joanne Kyger, as well as post-beat writers such as Andrew Schelling and Michael Rothenberg have studied and written in Western-style poetic diary form.

See also

• Art diary
• Haibun
• Pillow book
• Poetic journal

References

• "A Darkness of Heart" A Hank Glassman essay on Japanese literary tradition.
• The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature. Defines Nikki (Nikki Bungaku)