A mid-Heian woman poet, daughter of Izumi Shikibu, who served with her mother in the household of Empress Shōshi and was called 'little Shikibu' to distinguish them. She died in 1025, still in her twenties, shortly after giving birth, and her mother's grief-stricken poems survive. Only four of her poems are in imperial anthologies, but her Hyakunin Isshu verse is famous: when Fujiwara no Sadayori teased her that her mother in distant Tango must be writing her poems, she instantly improvised a reply packed with puns on the road to Tango, silencing him.
大江山 いく野の道の 遠ければ
まだふみもみず 天の橋立
Ōeyama Ikuno no michi no tōkereba / mada fumi mo mizu Ama no Hashidate
The road to Tango, over Mount Ōe and through Ikuno, is so far that I have never set foot on Ama no Hashidate — nor seen a letter from my mother.