Leading Japanese Tanka Poet Hirohiko Okano Dies at 101

Tokyo, May 1 (Jiji Press)--Hirohiko Okano, a prominent Japanese tanka poet who served as a poetry selector for the annual "Utakai Hajime" New Year's poetry-reading ceremony at the Imperial Palace, died on April 24. He was 101.

Born in the western Japan prefecture of Mie in 1924, Okano studied under folklorist and poet Shinobu Orikuchi at Kokugakuin University and joined the Torifunesha tanka society. He won an award from the Kajins Association, a society of modern tanka poets, in 1968 for his first book of poems.

He gave tanka writing guidance to Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, as an adviser to the Imperial Household Agency and served as a selector of poems submitted for recitals at the Utakai Hajime from 1979 to 2008. He also served as a professor at Kokugakuin University and as president of Kokugakuin Tochigi Junior College.

Okano's tanka collections include "Soroka," which won the Choku award for outstanding tanka, "Umi no Mahoroba," which received an art award from the Cultural Affairs Agency, "Ame no Tazumura," which was awarded the Yomiuri Prize for Literature, and "Baghdad Moyu," which also won an award from the Kajins Association. He also wrote a biography of Orikuchi.

Okano received the Medal with Purple Ribbon, a Japanese medal of honor given to people with outstanding achievements in the fields of academia, sports, culture and arts, in 1988. He was chosen to become a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1998 and selected as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2013. In 2021, he received the Order of Culture.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]