mid-Heian period · dates unknown (late 9th c. – early 10th c.)Ōshikōchi no Mitsune

A mid-Heian poet who held only minor provincial posts but was chosen with Ki no Tsurayuki as one of the four compilers of the Kokinshū, in which sixty of his poems appear, second only to Tsurayuki. One of the Thirty-Six Immortals, he was frequently summoned to poetry contests and imperial excursions and excelled at screen poems. His intellectual, witty style typifies the Kokinshū manner. His Hyakunin Isshu poem imagines plucking a white chrysanthemum by guesswork, so confused is it with the first frost.