| Pub. Year | 1978, rept 1997 |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Weatherhill, Inc. (USA and Japan) |
| ISBN | 0-8348-0398-4 |
Songs from My Heart is perhaps best described as a selection of Ikeda’s personal diaries of his travels and experiences recorded in poetry and photographs. In them, he freely expresses impressions and reflections of intimate hopes for the future, of nature’s message of strength and beauty, of people—particularly young people—he has met along his journeys.
At once a call to youth for social change that arises from revolutionary change within themselves, Ikeda’s poems give paean to all people who strive for a better world:
There is no one stronger than you
no one more trustworthy
You wear no crown perhaps
but your crownlessness should be your joy
This volume, a reprint of the 1978 first edition translated by Burton Watson, is also published in the original Japanese. Footnotes enrich the poetic images where historical or cultural references are made.
Songs from My Heart is also available in Japanese, Thai, Portuguese, Tagalog and French.