late Heian period · dates unknown (late 11th c. – early 12th c.)Lady Kii

A late Heian woman poet known by her service to Princess Yūshi, daughter of Emperor Go-Suzaku. She was the daughter of Taira no Tsunekata and of a poet also in the princess's household, and is described as the wife or sister of a governor of Kii. She took part in many poetry contests from the 1070s onward and, at around seventy, joined the love-letter contest held by the retired Emperor Horikawa in 1102. About thirty of her poems survive in imperial anthologies. Her Hyakunin Isshu poem, composed for that contest, rejects the notoriously fickle waves of Takashi beach to keep her sleeves dry.