10 junior high school students from Yamanashi Prefecture were selected as the winners of the "Utakai Hajime" held at the Imperial Palace on New Year's Day.
The theme of the beginning of this year's poetry gathering was "Friends," and more than 15,000 tanka poems were submitted from all over Japan and overseas.
The youngest of the 10 winners is Aoi Komiyama (14), a second-year junior high school student in Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture. It means that I wrote the feeling that I want to make it.
Komiyama said, "At first I couldn't believe it and was surprised, but I'm happy because it's rare for her to go to the Imperial Palace, and her family was very happy."
In addition, Masako Fujii (73) from Ibara City, Okayama Prefecture, said that she wrote a memory of driving with her husband, who died 11 years ago, and her friends before marriage, saying, "My husband smiles until he dies. I wrote the poem while remembering that he was a kind person who was always enveloping me."
On the other hand, Yukari Kojima (66), a poet, was selected as a "servant" appointed by the Emperor to compose a poem.
The beginning of the poetry gathering will be held at the Imperial Palace on the 18th of next month, and the songs of the 10 winners and the servants will be performed along with the songs of their Majesties the Emperor and Empress and members of the Imperial family.