沖縄集 全 / The Full Collection of Okinawa Waka, Japanese Poetry

This book is a collection of waka, Japanese poetry, edited by GIWAN Chōho (1823-1876). It was completed in 1875 and published by the bookshop Kōseidō in Osaka through the Kagoshima Domain. This collection contains one work of each thirty-six poets and is also known as Okinawa Sanjūrokkasen (Thirty-six Great waka Poets of Okinawa). The preface was written by HATTA Tomonori who was GIWAN’s teacher, and the impression of this work was added by his poet friend KABAYAMA Sukeo. The waka is well organized from “Risshun” to “Teijōkaku” in the order of “four seasons,” “love,” and “others.” By using these themes, the poets created their own waka to express different sentiments or to describe different time of a year. The style of calligraphic writing in it is recognized as chirashigaki (a sporadic, irregular, or high/low style, with no alignment of lines and with words scattered throughout the work). Another collection is preserved in the Okinawa Prefectural Library. The contents and the structure of it are the same as this one, but the binding is different.