“I fell asleep during an online lesson/ And woke up to find only myself on the screen,” goes a tanka poem by Rintaro Murakami, a third-year junior high school student. Around this time every ...

He served as a judge for the annual “Utakai Hajime,” or the Imperial New Year’s Poetry Reading ceremony, and as a tanka adviser for the imperial family. His grand resume belies his checkered ...