Being lazy, I read the English translation before the Japanese original, so "girl(boy) hungry ghosts" threw me (despite the lack of hyphens to fix the meaning as I took it).

Maybe change "girl" to "female" and drop "boy" altogether?

Anyway, any thoughts as to why Buddhism was a less popular topic?

(Slightly off topic, how do you know it's Obon in Iwaki? The Jangara groups make the rounds of the neighborhood, chanting and dancing. Started one house over at 10:30 this morning. Aiya.)

It's not to say that there aren't Buddhist-themed poem collections either--I read one that was penned by one of the Shrine Princesses of Kamo (and they were forbidden from using words that referred to Buddhism while they were in office, same as the Ise princess--and there's an obscure Japanese language topic for ya).

I suspect there might be some other Buddhist-themed poems in the Man'yoshu even, although I can't point to any off-hand. That'd just be my impression. (Of course, they'd not be using the term Buddha explicitly....)-Kristina

Re the girl/boy thing, I was trying to capture the extreme immaturity (as I see it) of the poem. I guess it only really works if "hungry ghost" attracts the phrase-parsing glands more strongly than "girl (boy) - hungry". Maybe "hungry boy (girl) ghosts" would be better.

From what Kristina says, it sounds like maybe one reason there weren't as many Buddhist poems is anti-Buddhist political pressure. From a poetic point of view, I think another reason is that to discuss Buddhism in Japanese you need to use a lot of loan words from Chinese and those just don't fit elegantly into traditional Japanese poetic structures (for technical AND aesthetic reasons).

Which maybe means that, like K. suggests, there are a whole bunch of Buddhist poems that I just don't recognise because all the telltale terms are paraphrased in yamatokotoba...

By the way, Kristina, what was the Shrine Princess of Kamo's collection called? It sounds intriguing. Do you think I'd have any chance of finding a copy out here in non-academia?

Well, political pressure in some fields (like the jingikan perhaps, depending on the year involved). The separation practiced at Kamo and Ise wasn't necessarily complete, and there was still a helluva lot of syncretism.

I don't remember the title of the book offhand, but I'll look it up and comment with it here.-Kristina

Long after the fact, but I found the book. Edward Kamens The Buddhist Poetry of the Great Kamo Priestess: Daisaiin Senshi and Hosshin Wakashu, which is to say, Hosshin wakashu would be the name of the collection. (Personally, I wouldn't have gotten all of the Buddhist references without Kamens' book, though.