uta-awase

thumb|right|300px|Eleventh-century scroll of the Poetry Contest held by the Empress in the Kanpyō (era)|Kampyō era (c. 890); one of several manuscripts of poetry contests that have been designated [[National Treasures; Tokyo National Museum]]

, poetry contests or waka matches, are a distinctive feature of the Japanese literary landscape from the Heian period. Significant to the development of Japanese poetics, the origin of group composition such as renga, and a stimulus to approaching waka as a unified sequence and not only as individual units, the lasting importance of the poetic output of these occasions may be measured also from their contribution to the imperial anthologies: 92 poems of the Kokinshū and 373 of the Shin Kokinshū were drawn from uta-awase.