Hyakunin Isshu: Meet the Poets
Taira no Kanemori

Meaning

Though I tried to keep it secret, my love showed itself on my face — to the point where people asked if something was on my mind.

Commentary

This poem was composed at the famous Tentoku Poetry Contest of 960 CE, where it competed directly against poem 41 by Mibu no Tadami. Both poems treat the same subject — a love so intense it cannot be hidden — and the contest was so close that contemporary accounts say the judge was unable to choose between them.

The poem focuses on a specific social exposure: the speaker's face has betrayed what his words had kept silent. People around him notice his troubled expression before he has said a word. In the refined world of Heian court society, this kind of involuntary disclosure would have carried real social weight, which gives the poem both emotional intimacy and a quiet, almost rueful humour.

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