Izumi Shikibu (976 – 1030) was a writer, poet, and member of the Japanese court during the Heian Period. She is a member of the Thirty-six Medieval Poetry Immortals, a group of Japanese poets of the Asuka, Nara, and Heian periods selected as exemplars of Japanese poetic ability. Her poetry is of the waka style, in thirty-one syllables, arranged in five lines, of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables respectively. She is considered by many to have been the greatest woman poet of the Heian period. Her legacy includes 242 poems and 2 kashu.
Quotes by Izumi Shikibu…
Nothing
in the world
is usual today.
This is
the first morning.
Come quickly — as soon as
these blossoms open,
they fall.
This world exists
as a sheen of dew on flowers.
