Thirty-Six Immortal Women Poets

The women canonized in this compilation are typically noblewomen associated with the imperial court, for example, Lady Ise, consort to Emperor Uda, Inpumon'in no Tayū (literally the Attendant to Empress Inpu), Michitsuna no haha (literally, Michitsuna's mother), Fujiwara no Shunzei no Musume (Literally Shunzei Fujiwara's daughter).

Scholars Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen and Yumiko Watanabe have suggested that the lack of a proper name or singular identity, symbolising broader structural power relations that marginalised court women, may have contributed to their autobiographic impulse to craft poetry.^[4][5][6]

Pre-modern Japanese literature professor Roselee Bundy traces the contribution to women's court poetry reaching its zenith in the mid Heian period as aesthetic communal events, before gradual professionalization of the genre began to exclude women's voices beginning in the Kamakura period.^[5]

• 【1】：Selected in the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry by Fujiwara no Kintō (1113).
• 【2】：Selected in the Late Classical Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry by Fujiwara no Norikane [ja] in the late Heian period.
• 【3】：Selected in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu by Fujiwara no Teika in the early Kamakura period.
• 【4】：Selected in the New Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry by unknown compilers in the Kamakura period

In 1801 the ukiyo-e painter Chōbunsai Eishi made a series of paintings to depict the thirty-six immortal women poets^[7] to accompany the calligraphy of each poet's verse, as produced by 36 girls who were students of Hanagata Giryu's (花形義融)^[8] calligraphy school "Hanagata Shodo".^[9] The album, reproduced with woodblock printing was intended to publicize the school. The 36 portraits are divided into a "left" (左) team and a "right" (右) team where the left team comprised poets who lived between the ninth and eleventh centuries, and the right team was made up of those poets that lived in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The teams square off in a pair-competition on each spread, which was a practice dating from the Heian period imperial court in the late ninth century. The Smithsonian researcher Andrew J. Pekarik compared this competitive social art form to poetry slams at the Nuyorican Poets Café in the 1990s.^[10]

The album was published by Nishimura Yohachi with an album binding (gajōsō)^[11] and also featured a woodblock printed cover designed by Hokusai.^[12] The block carvers were Yamaguchi Matsugorō (山口松五郎) and Yamaguchi Seizō (山口清蔵).^[8]

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  1. Ono no Komachi 小野小町
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  2. Lady Ise 伊勢
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  Nakatsukasa 中務
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  4. Saigū no Nyōgo (Kishi Joō) 斎宮女御
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  5. Ukon 右近
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  6. Fujiwara no Michitsuna no Haha 右大将道綱母
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  7. Uma no Naishi 馬内侍
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  8. Akazome Emon 赤染衛門
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  9. Izumi Shikibu 和泉式部
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  10. Kodai no Kimi 三条院女蔵人左近 小大君
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  11. Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部
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  12. Koshikibu no Naishi 小式部内侍
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  13. Ise no Taifu 伊勢大輔
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  14. Sei Shōnagon 清少納言
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  15.Daini no Sanmi 大弐三位
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  16. Takashina no Takako 高内侍
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  17. Yūshi Naishinnō-ke no Kii 一宮紀伊
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  18. Sagami 相模
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  19. Princess Shikishi (Shikishi Naishinnō) 式子内親王
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  20. Kunai-kyō 宮内卿
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  21 Suō no Naishi 周防内侍（平仲子
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  23. Taikenmon'in no Horikawa 待賢門院堀河
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  24. Gishūmon'in no Tango 宜秋門院丹後
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  25. Kayōmon'in no Echizen 嘉陽門院越前
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  26. Nijōin no Sanuki 二条院讃岐
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  27. Kojijū 小侍従
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  28. Go-Toba-in no Shimotsuke 後鳥羽院下野
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  29. Ben no Naishi 弁内侍
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  30. Gofukakusa-in no shōshō no naishi 少将内侍
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  31. Inpumon'in no Tayū 殷富門院大輔
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  32. Tsuchimikado In no Kosaishō 土御門院小宰相
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  33. Hachijō-in Takakura 八条院高倉
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  34. Fujiwara no Chikako 後嵯峨院中納言典侍（典侍藤原親子）
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  35. Shikikenmon'in no Mikushige 式乾門院御匣
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  36. Sōhekimon'in no Shōshō 藻璧門院少将