Calligraphy Speaks—The Wit and Charm of the 30 cm Poem Paper

As their name suggests, kaishi were originally literally “papers stored in the front fold of the kimono” that were carried around on one’s person for various purposes, including wiping one’s mouth or hands or writing down notes, but around the 10th century they came to be used by poets to write down their own poems. The size of these papers varied somewhat according to the period or the rank and status of the individual poet, but generally they were approximately thirty centimeters high and forty to fifty centimeters across. One sheet of kaishi could be divided vertically into eight tanzaku strips, which began to appear around the 14th century. Starting with emperors and aristocratic nobles and warrior families and spanning to include the representative literary figures of early modern Japan, such as Matsuo Bashō and Ike no Taiga, then later Natsume Sōseki and Masaoka Shiki, we seek out the true character of these historical personages through the words they inscribed on these kaishi and tanzaku poetry papers.