or waka, a poem. This is the oldest waka (poem written in Japanese) and hence poetry was later praised as having been founded by a kami, a divine creation. The two books shared many of the same or similar pieces but Nihonshoki contained newer ones because it recorded later affairs (up till the reign of Emperor Tenmu) than Kojiki. Themes of waka in the books were diverse, covering love, sorrow, satire, war cries, praise of victory, riddles and so on. Many works in Kojiki were anonymous. Some were attributed to kami, emperors and empresses, nobles, generals, commoners and sometimes enemies of the court. Most of these works are considered collectively as "works of the people", even where attributed to someone, such as the kami Susanoo. Heian period The Heian period (794 to 1185) in Japan was one of both extensive general linguistic and mutual poetic development, in Japan. Developments include the Kanbun system of writing by means of adapting Classical Chinese for use in Japan by using a process of annotation, and the further development of the kana writing system from the Man'yōgana of the Nara period, encouraging more vernacular poetry, developments in the waka form of poetry. The Heian era was also one in which developed an increasing process of writing poems (sometimes collaboratively) and collecting them into anthologies, which in the case of the Kokin Wakashū were given a level of prestige, due to imperial patronage. Waka in the early Heian period It is thought the Man'yōshū reached its final form, the one we know today, very early in the Heian period. There are strong grounds for believing that Ōtomo no Yakamochi was the final editor but some documents claim further editing was done in the later period by other poets including Sugawara no Michizane. Though there was a strong inclination towards Chinese poetry, some eminent waka poets were active in the early Heian period, including the six best waka poets. Man'yōshū anthology Compiled sometime after 759, the oldest poetic anthology of waka is the 20 volume Man'yōshū, in the early part of the Heian period, it gathered ancient works. The order of its sections is roughly chronological. Most of the works in the Man'yōshū have a fixed form today called chōka and tanka. But earlier works, especially in Volume I, lacked such fixed form and were attributed to Emperor Yūryaku. The Man'yōshū begins with a waka without