Utakai Hajime

The Utakai Hajime (歌会始, First poetry competition) is an annual gathering, convened by the Emperor of Japan, in which participants read traditional Japanese poetry on a common theme before a wider audience.

The exact origins of the tradition are unclear, though it is known that the Emperor Kameyama convened a January poetry reading, at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, as early as 1267.

[1] Sometime during the Edo period the practice became more regular, and since the Meiji restoration of 1869, it has been held almost every year.

[1] Poems written by the general public were admitted for consideration for the first time in 1879.

In 1957 American poet Lucille Nixon became the first non-Japanese person to do so.