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…