These translated poems were written by 2 ladies of the Heian court of Japan between the ninth and eleventh centuries A.D. The poems speak intimately of their authors' sexual longing, fulfillment and disillusionment.From Publishers WeeklyMatters of the heart and spirit and the transient nature of time and existence are the dominant themes of this collection of love poems by two leading female literary figures of Japan's Heian era--Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu. The book includes an illuminating introduction and an appendix on Japanese poetry and the process of translation.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.BiographyJane Hirshfield is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently THE BEAUTY (Knopf, 2015), longlisted for the National Book Award and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2015; COME, THIEF (Knopf, 2011); AFTER (HarperCollins, 2006), named a Best Book of 2006 by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and England's Financial Times, and a finalist for England's prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize; GIVEN SUGAR, GIVEN SALT (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award, and winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award); THE LIVES OF THE HEART; THE OCTOBER PALACE; and OF GRAVITY & ANGELS.She is the author as well of a now-classic book of essays, NINE GATES: ENTERING THE MIND OF POETRY and the recent TEN WINDOWS: HOW GREAT POEMS TRANSFORM THE WORLD (Knopf, 2015), winner of the Northern California Book Award in non-fiction. She is also the author of THE HEART OF HAIKU, an Amazon Kindle Single exploring the essence of haiku and its 17th-century founding poet, Matsuo Basho, which was named both a "Best Kindle Single" and an Amazon Best Book of 2011.Hirshfield has additionally edited and co-translated three books collecting the work of poets from the past: THE INK DARK MOON: Love Poems by Komachi & Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, WOMEN IN PRAISE OF THE SACRED: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, a