Throwing my hat in with the thread-per-week-for-the-sake-of-decluttering party.
A template seems like it would definitely solve the issue of a hassle. What would need to change from week to week in each week’s OP besides the poll for who is doing what poem?
Same here 
I’m still not even sure exactly what it is we’re meant to be doing with each poem. Perhaps if someone who proposed the format could provide an example…
From what I understand the people who volunteer to research the poems do some investigative work outside of the book to add to the book’s categories such as meaning and commentary.
Then those who are just following along read the research and the book as normal.
While for my sensibilities the drop down menus make for little clutter in the viewing, the OP is already very cluttered while editing due to all the decision making info in there.
We have also had quite a bit of activity already. If we stay this active as a group (which would be awesome!), I agree that separate threads have their place. They wouldn’t have to be weekly, either - the book is divided into 5 20首 chapters. If we only made a thread for each of these it would keep the work load comparatively low for the one creating them.
Since I’m not the one making the threads, I don’t mind the weekly threads - just want to open up the possibility of a middle ground.
Why, please do go ahead! 
So far it’s been handled very free style, but common points seem to be info on the author, the poem’s meaning, and cultural anecdotes to do with and/or interlinking both.
Feel free to present your contribution via song or creative writing if you wish.
I’d actually like to read that. Or hear that. Maybe.
I vote that next tranche of poems are interpreted through either interpretive dance or abstract art.
We’re already studying tanka so why not expand it to ukiyo-e and kabuki dance?
I didn’t propose the format, just the book. On the other hand, I notice noone’s done poem three yet… 
It‘s only Wednesday…
I swear we‘re getting to it
Myria and I were both busy until yesterday, so we decided to work on the poem today. 
I’d be down for that too. Think that might be a good idea.
I just felt like it might be beneficial to keep the main thread relatively admin only, just so it’s easier to navigate depending on what you’re looking for. So yeah, I’m happy to have 5 threads for 20 poems each… should we maybe have a poll to see what people are thinking?
This is a joint effort by @Myria and yours truly
We also almost accidentally established a structure 
Please adopt if you like it
3番歌: あしびきの山鳥の尾のしだり尾の ながながし夜をひとりかも寝む (柿本人麻呂)
“Must I sleep alone through the long autumn nights, long like the dragging tail of the mountain pheasant separated from his dove?” - translated by Joshua S. Mostow, in Pictures of the Heart (1996)
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (柿本 人麻呂; c. 660 – 720), was a Japanese poet of the Nara period who featured prominently in the oldest extant Japanese poetry anthology,
He was a middle-ranking courtier in Yamato (today’s Nara prefecture) and served as court poet to at least three sovereigns: Emperor Temmu (r. 673-686), Empress Jitō (690-697) and Emperor Mommu (697-707).
Hitomaro was Japan’s first great literary figure. He lived and wrote poetry at a time when Japan was emerging from a pre-literate society into a literate and civilized one. He combined the qualities of primitive song with new rhetoric and structural techniques (some of which may have been adapted from Chinese poetry), and wrote about sophisticated new subjects and concerns with an attitude of seriousness and importance.
Later, he was included in Fujiwara no Kintō’s anthology
Hitomaro is considered one of Japan’s greatest and most appealing poets, whose work still has a resonance for us today.
The
It has a long, hanging tail (しだり尾＝垂れ下がっている尾), and in the poem here it is used to symbolize the length of the night. But Hitomaro didn’t just pick a random bird with a long tail; it is said that the female and male bird separate from each other at night and sleep in different places.
Almost all of the 句 in the first part of the poem end in の, which invokes an echoing effect in the text, just like an echo in the mountains.
短歌 often use a rhetorical device called
However, these 枕詞 were used less and less in the later Heian period, which is why they’re found more often in older poems from 百人一首.
The poem features another technique called
The の at the end of the third 句 can thus be read as のように, as seen in the 現代語 interpretation as well.
We found a source which claims that this poem wasn’t actually written by Hitomaro. Apparently it was originally listed in the 11th volume of the 万葉集 with the author unknown, but was later falsely attributed to him, in part due to Fujiwara no Kintō and his selection of poems by the
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Kakinomoto_Hitomaro
http://www.wakapoetry.net/poets/manyo-poets/kakinomoto-no-hitomaro/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kakinomoto-Hitomaro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Six_Immortals_of_Poetry
https://ogurasansou.jp.net/columns/arakaruta/2018/01/24/1523/
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/枕詞
https://honda-n2.com/honkoku-ogura-hyakunin-isshu-3#section1
http://www.katakago.info/library/kikaku/01haru-hitomaro/kashin/daihyou.htm
I polled poem 1 though. I know there’s been some discussion on it already, but I’m sure there’s more to be found!
If nothing else I can make a post compiling it all in one place for easier reading.
Very thorough and worth the wait.
Isn’t it strange they call poetic devices “pillow words”? Kind of intimate sounding.
Thank you
Yes, I thought so too at first! But then I realized that 枕 also means “bolster” so it probably has more the meaning of “buffer” or “cushioning” and not the meaning of a bed’s pillow.
checks Wikipedia
They put it this way: “The set phrase can be thought of as a “pillow” for the noun or verb it describes” which I think is much more poetic than my approach 
and indeed a little bit intimate, describing the close relationship between the 枕詞 and the word following it.
Well they do say that etymology is unknown. Btw, the first thing I though when I saw the term was - Sei Shōnagon`s The Pillow Book.
I forgot to reply before, but
I agree too and it’s mostly useless info at this point.
I’m also fine with that, but is do you (and the rest) agree to get the first five weeks in this thread? We have already done one, and we can’t move it somewhere else without moderation power. And having just one week separate from the rest is making me twitch.
I’m going to wait ~24h before I post the new weekly poll, just in case there’s overwhelming opinion in favor of moving immediately.
I don’t care either way. I see you already cleaned up the OP too.
I was thinking that way as well. makes my ocd act up 
Didn’t say anything because I thought I might be way too pedantic
Alright, we stay in this thread for a little bit, then.
6 かささぎの 渡せる橋に おく霜の 白きをみれば 夜ぞふけにける （中納言家持)
7 天の原 ふりさけ見れば 春日なる 三笠の山に 出でし月かも （安倍仲麿)
8 わが庵は 都のたつみ しかぞすむ 世をうぢ山と 人はいふなり （喜撰法師)
9 花の色は うつりにけりな いたづらに わが身世にふる ながめせしまに （小野小町）
10 これやこの 行くも帰るも 別れては 知るも知らぬも 逢坂の関 （蝉丸）
I’m only here for the discussion, I’m not researching anything.
I’m only here.
0 voters