Born in Maebashi, Gunma, the eldest son of the doctor Hagiwara Mitsuzō. He was a frail, nervous child who often lost himself in daydreams alone, it is said.
Around this time, while still a middle-school student, he wrote tanka, and some were published in Myōjō, the magazine of Yosano Tekkan and Akiko.
He went on to higher school but failed repeatedly and left, and later dropped out of university too. Unsure of his path, he threw himself into the mandolin and guitar and even dreamed of becoming a musician.
His poems appeared in Zamboa, Kitahara Hakushū's magazine, and he set out on his path as a poet. He came to know Murō Saisei, who also wrote for the magazine, and they became lifelong friends.
With Saisei and Yamamura Bochō he founded the Mermaid Poetry Society to study poetry and music. The three set out to study poetry, religion and music, and the next year issued the society's magazine Takujō Funsui (Tabletop Fountain).
With Saisei he launched the poetry magazine Kanjō (Feeling), which became a venue for new poems in colloquial language.
He published his first collection, Howling at the Moon. Its poems, expressing almost morbidly sharp sensations in everyday speech, were hailed as bringing Japanese colloquial free verse to maturity. Some poems had to be removed as harmful to public morals.
He published the collection Blue Cat, singing in musical language of the melancholy and loneliness of people living in the city.
He moved to Tokyo with his family. He wrote much poetry criticism and many essays, and mixed with writers such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.
He separated from his wife and returned with his two daughters to his family home in Maebashi. The pain of this time cast a deep shadow over his later poems.
He published Ice Island, a collection singing of solitude and despair in powerful language modeled on classical Chinese style. From this year he also lectured on poetry at Meiji University.
He died of pneumonia in Tokyo. As the man who transformed modern Japanese poetry, he is sometimes called the father of modern Japanese poetry. A memorial museum to Sakutarō stands in his hometown of Maebashi.
Kitahara HakushūAkutagawa Ryūnosuke
Osugi SakaeHiratsuka RaichōMatsui SumakoYamada KōsakuTanizaki Jun'ichirōNakayama ShinpeiKikuchi KanKagawa Toyohiko
People of the Taishō period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.