The two poems read:

Haru fukeru

Kaze no n ani ou

Kochi o koso

Natsu wa minahito

Messuru nari kere

--- by Yoshigaki Toshiji

The east winds of spring

arrive, true to form, with shoals

of flathead fish

but by summer, to be sure,

you’ll find no trace of either

Araku utsu

Nami no shita yori

Umare dete

Kochi wa kashira no

Hishigetari kemu

--- by Magaki Harutomo

Flathead fish grow up

under wildly pounding waves,

so perhaps that is

why their heads now appear

completely squashed and flattened.

The first edition of this series comprised ten prints and was commissioned by an Edo poetry circle to commemorate a kyoka competition on the theme of seafood and was printed as a private edition in the form of a kyoka poetry album. Prints issued as part of this private edition included the names of the judges in the contest preceding the poems and do not bear publishers seals that were added to the commercial edition issued soon after for wider distribution. The current print offered here is a first edition with the judge’s names Kuzubana and Noriho.

Other impressions in museum collections:

First edition:

Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), Vienna, inventory no. BI 24666-8, go to:

https://sammlung.mak.at/en/collection_online?id=collect-196392

Commercial edition:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 21.9607, go to:

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/237225