Troops at Front Enter New Year Contest Tokyo, Nov. 20.
Giving vent to poetic sentiments in the environment of a battlefield, many panese soldiers at various China fronts are sending "masterpieces" of verse to Tokyo in response to the traditional New Year poetry contest sponsored by the Imperial Poetry Bureau of the Imperial Household Ministry.
These impromptu poet-soldiers are working under a handicap: they have only a meagre supply of regulation stationery! To overcome a paper and ink shortage the Poetry Bureau officials have been instructed by the Throne to waive the rules regarding he kinds of paper on which the soldiers are sending in their literary opuses.
The theme for this year's contest is "an Island in the Morning Sun" and be deadline is December 10. Particular interest has been aroused by the contributions of nurses working at the fronts.
Special albums of the verses sent from the fronts in China and Manchoukuo will be compiled and kept by Their Majesties, Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako, it was revealed.—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.