Born in Sakai, Osaka, daughter of a confectioner; her real name was Shiyō.
She sent tanka to the magazine Myōjō and met Yosano Tekkan.
She left home for Tokyo and published the tanka collection Midaregami (Tangled Hair), whose passionate poems caused a sensation. She married Tekkan.
Thinking of her brother at the front in the Russo-Japanese War, she published the poem "Kimi shinitamō koto nakare" (Do not offer your life).
She followed her husband, who had gone ahead to Paris, to Europe.
She debated with Hiratsuka Raichō and others over women's independence and state protection of mothers.
With Nishimura Isaku and others she founded the Bunka Gakuin, a school of liberal education.
She began publishing a new version of her long-laboured modern translation of The Tale of Genji.
After a stroke she died in Tokyo. While raising twelve children, she is said to have composed some 50,000 poems in her life.
Higuchi IchiyōShimazaki TōsonTayama KataiHata SahachirōHishida ShunsōNoguchi HideyoTaki RentarōIshikawa Takuboku
People of the Meiji period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.