Natsukusa (Summer grass)

Signed verso acrylic on weathered plywood (driftwood) from the Conwy estuary.

This translation of an anonymous Japanese poem celebrates the (almost anonymous) work of the English poet Ralph Hodgson, who in the 1930s assisted the committee of scholars translating and editing the Manyoshu, the earliest and greatest Japanese anthologies, originally compiled in the eighth century . Hodgson contributed by revising their initial versions and it is generally acknowledged that the quality of the published translations owes much to his ability as a scholar and poet. Summer grass is associated in Japanese poetry with making vows of love.