Women Writing Women: 'A Woman's Place' in Modern Japanese Women's Poetry: A.R. Davis Memorial Lecture 2015

The aim of this paper is to explore the struggle for self-fulfilment and self-expression in the work of a number of the 'new woman' poets emerging from the late Meiji period, through both their tanka and free-style verse. Increasingly visible in the department stores, cafes and factories, these 'new women' were also increasingly visible in the literary journals and women's associations. Drawing on the results of an ongoing translation project to create an anthology of 100 years of Japanese women's poetry, I will focus my discussion on the theme of a 'woman's place' in her world, which has presented itself as a central theme within the anthology.