There is an interesting book, STRING OF BEADS: COMPLETE POEMS OF PRINCESS
SHIKISHI, translated by Hiroaki Sato (U. of Hawaii Press, 1993) which
contains translations of the renowned Princess Shikishi's extant 399 poems,
including 3 complete 100-poem sequences (the third of which was written in
the last months of her life when she was dying from breast cancer). She is
thought to have composed thousands of waka.

A "vestal virgin" of the Shinto sect, nevertheless Shikishi wrote a large
variety of poems on seasons, love, and occasionally religion. There is
evidence that she had a long-lived love affair with Fujiwara no Teika, who
admired her poems and who himself records that he went to her on many
occasions for overnight visits. She was highly regarded in her time. In the
Shokokinshu (which Teika helped to compile in the early years of the 13th
c.), there are 49 of her poems, making her the 5th best represented poet in
that highly prestigious collection. Sato notes that a total of 155 of her
poems appeared in imperial waka collections, more than any other woman poet
in that era.

The translations are in "single line" format, the form favored by Sato,
himself a poet. He argues vehemently in favor of the single line form on the
grounds that tanka were written in the original Japanese on a single line.
This is highly controversial and need not concern us here. Nonetheless, the
translations are quite nice, and there are abundant footnotes. Most of the
poems have references or allusions to other poems, notably Kokinshu poems.

I have found that sometimes Sato's translations, especially when 22 syllables
or longer (some of his translations are as low as 16 syllables total) lend
themselves well to the 5-line format that most other translators now favor.
Here is a sample of one of Sato's translations, from Shikishi's first
100-poem sequence in this volume:

"I do not know about hilltops with cherry in bloom; now in spring haze a
thousand hues fade"

Perhaps someone like Burton Watson might have organized the same words into 5
lines thus:

"I do not know
about hilltops with cherry
in bloom;
now in spring haze
a thousand hues fade."

A better case is in the footnote to Sato's translation of this poem, in which
he calls attention to a poem by Fujiwara no Okikaze (Kokinshu #102), upon
which Shikishi may have based her own poem ("allusive variation" or
honkadori), which Sato translates as

"Spring haze appears in a thousand hues: the flowers on low-lying hills may
be casting their shadows"

This would also lend itself to 5-line organization:

"Spring haze
appears in a thousand hues:
the flowers
on low-lying hills
may be casting their shadows."

In this example there is even a plausible pivot word, "flowers".

When I read Sato's translations, out of habit I find myself trying to fit his
renditions into 5-line form. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I
find his translations superior to some translators like H.H. Honda who
habitually translate waka into 4 lines (which seems incongruous to me).

Just a few observations. Comments welcome. :)

gassho,
Richard