This short essay explores in very broad strokes to what extent traditional Japanese poetry, with emphasis on the waka (or modern tanka) form, has lent itself to express war trauma. Historically, waka tend to be associated with the world of courtly aesthetics, the passing of the seasons, and the eventual unravelling of love affairs. While such associations are not wrong, there are examples of waka that have been composed in the midst of warfare and of waka that take the horrors of bloodshed as their theme. Here, my interest is specifically in the examples that view war as an extremely shocking experience.