mid-Heian period · dates unknown (956?–1041?)Akazome Emon

A mid-Heian woman poet, possibly the natural daughter of Taira no Kanemori. Married to the scholar Ōe no Masahira, she served Michinaga's wife Rinshi and their daughter Empress Shōshi, and Murasaki Shikibu praised the dignity of her verse. She is generally believed to be the author of the first part of A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, a history of Michinaga's age. One of the Late Classical Thirty-Six Immortals, with about ninety-five poems in imperial anthologies, she was ranked alongside Izumi Shikibu. Her Hyakunin Isshu poem, written for her sister, reproaches a lover who failed to come.