The first great Japanese poetry anthology, compiled by the poet Otomo no Yakamochi around 759.
The most important poetic forms in the anthology are the choka[?] (long poem), consisting of alternate lines of five and seven syllables, followed by a final line of seven syllables; and the tanka (short poem), consisting of 31 syllables, written in five lines according to a pattern of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables.
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro is one of the poets featured in the work.
The anthology is written using a syllabary called man'yo-gana[?], in which Chinese characters serve as phonetic symbols of syllables rather than of words.
See also: Man'yo-gana[?], Kokin'-wakashu[?], Shin-kokin-wakashu[?]
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