Today’s poem is by Izumi Shikibu. She was born in Japan in 974 into a family with a rich history of service as governors in the mid-Heian period. Izumi Shikibu was well known in the imperial court in Kyoto. She was also listed as one of the ‘Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry’ by her fellow poet Fujiwara no Kintō.

Could we imagine what it would be like to be selected as one of a group of ‘immortals of poetry’? What does this glorious group name suggest about the nature of art? Can producing great art lead to an artist living forever? Could we become ‘immortals of poetry’ ourselves? I think some of our Year 7s have already shown some promising signs in this week alone.

In ‘Although the Wind…’, Izumi Shikibu does not give us a perfect world, but she brings us some hope. There is no overly extravagant beauty described, there is just a leaky house situated where ‘the wind/blows terribly’ . Does this imperfect house, this ‘ruined house’ even, hold some hope, some beauty? What would we expect to leak in from the roof? What do we actually get pouring in? Does our speaker learn to relish her flawed but wonderful surroundings? Could this seem more meaningful and accurate to us, when we consider everything?    

Adrian Fernandes, Head of English