Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction Thinking with Pictures -- The Image and the Origins of Poetry -- Experience and Ekphrasis -- Painting and Poetic Essence -- Optical Allusions: Image and Code -- The Paths of Japanese Screen Poetry -- Chapter One Screens and Poems, Contexts and Images -- Folding Screens in Japan -- Screens and Their Contexts -- Early Painting-Poems in Chinese -- Early Poems on Paintings in Japanese -- Chapter Two The Efflorescence of Screen Poetry -- Inscription and Perspective -- Tsurayuki and Screen Poetry: Layered Perspective and Ekphrasis -- Mitsune and Screen Poetry: Sense and Sensibility -- Lady Ise and Screen Poetry: Persona and Narrative -- Reading, Viewing, Composing -- Chapter Three The Dai Is Cast -- Topical Convention vs. Lyric Expression -- Early Dai: Visual Perception and Direct Experience -- Folding Screens and Visual Topics -- Screen Painting and Poetic Topic Development -- Visual Thinking and Perceptual Cycles -- Chapter Four Politics and Precedence -- Screen Poetry and Shōshi's Court Entrance of 999 -- Screen Poetry and Ninshi's Court Entrance of 1190 -- Conclusion Poetic Conception, Poetic Vision -- Appendix A Screen Poems Predating Kokinshū (905) -- Appendix B Translation from Tales of Times Now Past -- Bibliography -- Index.