Poetry. When Zen master Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481) was appointed headmaster of the great temple at Kyoto, he lasted nine days before denouncing the rampant hypocrisy he saw among the monks there. He in turn invited them to look for him in the sake parlors of the Pleasure Quarters. A Zen monk-poet-calligrapher-musician, he dared to write about the joys of erotic love, along with more traditional Zen themes. He was an eccentric and genius who dared to defy authority and despised corruption. Although he lived during times plagued by war, famine, rioting, and religious upheaval, his writing and music prevailed, influencing Japanese culture to this day.

Author City: Philadelphia, PA USA

Stephen Berg is the author of numerous collections of poetry and translations and has been awarded the Frank O'Hara Memorial Prize, a Columbia University Translation Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Pew, Rockefeller, and Dietrich Foundations, as well as from the National Endowment for the Arts. Berg has taught at Princeton and Haverford and is currently a professor of humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.