A late Heian woman poet, daughter of Fujiwara no Nobunari, who served Princess Ryōshi, daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. So prolific that she was nicknamed 'Taifu of the thousand poems', she joined the Karin-en salon of Priest Shun'e and exchanged poems with Teika, Jakuren, Saigyō and Minamoto no Yorimasa, competing in many contests. She became a nun in 1192 when her mistress took vows. One of the Thirty-Six Women Immortals, she has about sixty-five poems in imperial anthologies. Her Hyakunin Isshu poem shows sleeves stained crimson by tears of blood, outdoing an earlier poem by Minamoto no Shigeyuki.
見せばやな 雄島の海人の 袖だにも
濡れにぞ濡れし 色は変はらず
How I wish I could show you my sleeves — even the fishermen's sleeves on Ojima, drenched and drenched again, never change their color, but mine are stained with tears of blood.
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