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With 7,490 entries winnowed down to 15 final gems in Japan's annual Imperial Poetry Contest, Japan's royal family and nine of the commoner finalists (each won a lacquered stationery box) celebrated at the traditional party in Tokyo's Imperial Palace. Subject of this year's poems: early spring.* To climax the lyrical wingding, in keeping with a thousand-year-old custom, the effort of Emperor Hirohito, not in the competition, was read five times. As usual, it seemed to have lost a lilting something in its English translation:
Happily, a pheasant roams in my garden Where morning frost has fallen And spring's coldness still lingers on.
* In 1951, Mrs. Roosevelt ran second to Australia's famed but controversial polio fighter Sister Elizabeth Kenny, who died in 1952. * Next year's theme: tomoshibi (light). The contest is open to poets of all nationalities and calibers. Entries (one per poet) must stick to the subject, be reasonably concise, arrive no later than Nov. 10, 1956 in the mailbox of: Annual Imperial Poetry Party Contest Committee, Imperial Household Office, Tokyo.