early Heian period · 875?–938?Ise

A woman poet of the early Heian period, daughter of a governor of Ise, from which she took her name. She served the consort of Emperor Uda, had love affairs with two Fujiwara brothers, bore a son to the emperor himself and later a daughter, the poet Nakatsukasa, to Prince Atsuyoshi. One of the Thirty-Six Immortals, she has twenty-two poems in the Kokinshū, more than any other woman, and was a leading composer of screen poems. Her Hyakunin Isshu poem on the short reeds of Naniwa is in the Shin Kokinshū.