@Dany @tilde @paninid One of the ways Japanese nobility communicated was by sending each other short poems called waka (imagine Tweets but also with a required syllable structure). They also had a bunch of poetic conventions drawn from old poetry anthologies, native mythology, and Chinese classics that they were all expected to know and use.

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@Dany @tilde @paninid So with this particular form and poetic conventions, they’d write love poems, jokes (lots of puns), and commentary on current events.

They would also riff off each other’s poems. Like, a poem that was particularly trendy or considered particularly bad would become a meme template for a while - like that “plums in the icebox” poem we all know.

And yes people would get roasted for bad/inappropriate poems.

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@Dany @tilde @paninid There are a lot of examples in the classical Tale of Genji where people would write parodies of each other’s poems. And since it’s about a romantic hero there is a lot of suggestive or erotic poetry.

There’s also an older lady of the court in the story who writes a poem on her fan like “The grass in this mountain pass is long, for no man comes to mow it…” which is a thirst post.

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@Dany @tilde @paninid And historically there were lots of love poems written between women! The imperial court of Kyoto back in the day was a hotbed of Sapphic romance.

Also yes there were letters and poems that were the equivalent of “U up?”

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