A mid-Heian poet, son of the Kokinshū compiler Mibu no Tadamine, who held only humble offices. One of the Thirty-Six Immortals, he has some thirty-five poems in imperial anthologies. At the palace poetry contest of 960 his poem on love that has become the talk of the court, now in the Hyakunin Isshu, was narrowly defeated by Taira no Kanemori's. A later legend claims he starved himself to death from chagrin, but records show him competing in contests afterward.
恋すてふ わが名はまだき 立ちにけり
人知れずこそ 思ひそめしか
Koi su chō waga na wa madaki tachinikeri / hito shirezu koso omoisomeshika
The rumor that I am in love has already spread, though I had only just begun to love in secret, so that no one would know.