Yamanoue Okura

Yamanoue Okura (born c. 660—died c. 733) was one of the most individualistic, even eccentric, of Japan’s classical poets, who lived and wrote in an age of bold experimentation when native Japanese poetry was developing rapidly under the stimulus of Chinese literature. His poems are characterized by a Confucian-inspired moral emphasis unique in Japanese poetry. The stern logic of Confucian morality, however, is often tempered with a Buddhist resignation more in keeping with the typical Japanese view of the world.

Relatively little is known of Okura’s early life. From 726 to 732 he was governor of the province of Chikuzen, in Kyushu. There he was responsible to the governor-general of the island, Ōtomo Tabito, himself a major poet and patron of letters, and the two formed a close literary relationship that both influenced and encouraged Okura. All of Okura’s extant work is contained in the 8th-century anthology Man’yō-shū. The most famous of his poems is the “Hinkyū mondō” (“Dialogue on Poverty”), which treats the sufferings of poverty in the form of an exchange between a poor man and a destitute man. Also outstanding are poems expressing love for his children and laments on the death of his son, on the instability of human life, and on his own sickness and old age.