Poetic diary, or Japanese poetic diary, is an English term coined by the Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 scholar/translator Earl Miner

Earl Miner

Earl Roy Miner was a professor at Princeton University, and a noted scholar of Japanese literature and especially Japanese poetry; he was also active in early English literature...

 in his book, Japanese Poetic Diaries. In Japan, poetic diaries ("uta nikki" in Japanese, literally "song diary") date back to Ki no Tsurayuki

Ki no Tsurayuki

was a Japanese author, poet and courtier of the Heian period.Tsurayuki was a son of Ki no Mochiyuki. He became a waka poet in the 890s. In 905, under the order of Emperor Daigo, he was one of four poets selected to compile the Kokin Wakashū, an anthology of poetry.After holding a few offices in...

's Tosa Nikki compiled in roughly 935. Traditionally, composed of a series of poems held together by prose sections, the poetic diary has often taken the form of a pillow book or a travel journal

Travel journal

A travel journal, also called road journal or travelogue, is a record made by a voyager. Generally in diary form, a travel journal contains descriptions of the traveler's experiences, is normally written during the course of the journey, intended on updating friends or family on the journey...

. Since World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Beat Generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

 writers in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 such as Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

, Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

, Philip Whalen

Philip Whalen

Philip Glenn Whalen was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation.-Biography:...

, and Joanne Kyger

Joanne Kyger

Joanne Kyger is an American poet. Her poetry is influenced by her practice of Zen Buddhism and her ties to the poets of Black Mountain, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat generation.-Overview:...

, as well as post-beat writers such as Andrew Schelling

Andrew Schelling

Andrew Schelling Andrew Schelling Andrew Schelling (born January 14, 1953 Washington D.C. is an American poet and translator.-Life:He grew up in New England. He moved west to Northern California in 1973. There he explored wilderness regions of the Coast Range and Sierra Nevadas. He studied at...

 and Michael Rothenberg

Michael Rothenberg

Michael Rothenberg is an American poet, songwriter, editor, and active environmentalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born in Miami Beach, Florida, Rothenberg received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill...

have studied and written in Western-style poetic diary form.