Parrot and Bells

Tanaka Shutei, a painter and print designer, created a design of an exotic pet parrot on a metal stand for the haiku poet Kyuso, who seems to have been the leader of various poetry groups.In each of these three prints, Kyuso chose to repeat the same basic design, although he was celebrating poetry collections by different groups on different occasions. He appears as host in every print, but he supplied a separate poem for each, and the other members were also different. The repetition of design implies that poetry hosts were not merely passive customers; they were often actively engaged in the production of prints.