Of Women is a collection of translations of Japanese waka-poems from the seventh century to the twelfth century, featuring twenty female poets from this period, when Japanese women’s literature flourished. This book includes poems by famous writers from the era, such as Sei Shonagon (The Pillow Book) and Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji), and introduces some lesser-known female poets as well. 

Waka compacts much information in a short form: words with double meanings, unfamiliar phrases, habits foreign to non-Japanese speakers, and hidden historical backgrounds. Direct translations would fail to capture the author’s full intent, so Of Women takes several approaches to capture the original sensory images, including text collage and haibun, as well as short essays that provide historical context and introduce the author before each waka.

Naoko’s work has already garnered impressive praise from established voices:

Of women gathers the poems of twenty Japanese women, many unnamed, from the 7th to 12th centuries, who wove longing, politics, beauty, and defiance into the compact form of waka. Fujimoto makes brilliant use of a “thick” approach, contextualizing her elegant translations with haibun-style reflections and visual art that both honor and explode the forms of the originals. In these pages, forgotten voices are reclaimed and reimagined, speaking with clarity and grace to our time. 

–Geoffrey Brock

Of Women: 20 Japanese Female Poets / 20 Waka Poems translated by Naoko Fujimoto is an astonishing collection that steals us into the most intimate chambers of the heart, its diamond-like facets illuminated by women poets of the Heian era, each as brilliant and original as Fujimoto’s remarkable renderings. Her haibun approach carefully nestles these Waka poems in striking historical and social contexts while providing both visual and phonetic interpretations that reveal not only the breath of each poem but the forbidden heat of each poet’s afterlight with sensorial pleasure. These poems transcend what one might know of translation, operating as layered maps through emotionally fraught labyrinths that swell with color and surprise, breathless when whispering: “So show me / your tears, / your crimson / forlorn.” Humid with longing or haunted by desires smoldering in the thick of personal and political entanglements, Fujimoto parts the clouds of anonymity so that each poet emerges majestic and full like the moon, gifting us monuments of spiritual fortitude and literary mastery that accompany us in the heavens through the long and pulsing night. 

—Monica Ong

Here’s more information about the translator and her achievements:  

Naoko Fujimoto was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan. She is a poet and translator. Her poetry collections are "We Face The Tremendous Meat On The Teppan", winner of C&R Press Summer Tide Pool Chapbook Award by C&R Press (2022), "Where I Was Born", winner of the editor's choice by Willow Books (2019), "Glyph:Graphic Poetry=Trans. Sensory" by Tupelo Press (2021), and four chapbooks.

She is a RHINO associate & translation editor and Tupelo Quarterly translation editor. She is a Bread Loaf Translation full scholarship recipient and the 2023 Visiting Teaching Artist at the Poetry Foundation. Her first translation chapbook is available from Toad Press in the fall of 2024. 

Charity E. Yoro (she/her) is a poet whose writing has appeared on The Rumpus, poets.org, Tupelo Press Quarterly, West Trestle Review, PRISM International, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere, and has received Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology nominations. Her debut poetry collection ten-cent flower & other territories (First Matter Press) was named the 2025 Oregon Book Award winner for the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. Born, raised, and educated on the east side of O‘ahu, she currently lives west of Denver with her wild, loving family.