Mitsuhashi Takajo
{{short description|Japanese haiku poet}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
File:Statue of Mitsuhashi Takajo.jpg
Mitsuhashi Takajo or Takajo Mitsuhashi (三橋 鷹女; born Fumiko Matsuhashi (三橋 たか) near Narita, Chiba on 24 January 1899; died 7 April 1972)[http://www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2009-issue32-3/essay.html Haiku Society of America] was a haiku poet of the Shōwa period.
Biography
Mitsuhashi Takajo was born near Narita. She was an admirer of Akiko Yosano and her father wrote tanka. In 1922 she married Kenzō (東 謙三), a dentist who wrote haiku and who influenced her to switch to haiku herself. By 1936 she became part of a group that founded the short-lived Kon (dark blue) publication and in 1940 had the collection Himawari or Sunflowers published. The war proved difficult for her family and in 1953 she became involved in a progressive magazine of avant-garde poets who allowed experimental haiku. Her last collection, in 1970, dealt somewhat with death as she had been ill for years.{{cite book|author=Makoto Ueda|title=Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2lv5DfmyL34C&pg=PA109|date=21 August 2012|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-50279-5|pages=109–110}}
Legacy and image
She has been referred to as a religious ascetic{{cite book|author=Kirstin Olsen|title=Chronology of Women's History|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780313288036|url-access=registration|date=1 January 1994|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-28803-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780313288036/page/327 327]}} or one who led a life of asceticism and spiritual concentration. She is said to have written works of self-alienation and the Void.{{cite book|author1=Ikuko Atsumi|author2=Kenneth Rexroth|title=Women Poets of Japan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NsQ0AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA153|date=17 February 1982|publisher=New Directions|isbn=978-0-8112-2387-4|page=153}} A statue of her is at Shinshoji Temple.[http://www.japannavigator.com/2011/07/haiku-stones-in-kanto-mitsuhashi-takajo.html Japan Navigator: Haiku Stones: Narita City (Mitsuhashi Takajo)]
She is one of the "4 Ts" of Japanese female haiku poets. The other three are Tatsuko Hoshino, Teijo Nakamura, and Takako Hashimoto.{{cite book|title=Haiku Mind|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r4NofHvdOPcC&pg=PA196|year=2008|publisher=Shambhala Publications|isbn=978-0-8348-2235-1|pages=40, 42, 80, and 196}}{{Cite web|url=https://thehaikufoundation.org/juxta/juxta-5-1/juxta-special-women-mentoring-women/women-haiku-poets-who-influenced-me/|title=Women Haiku Poets Who Influenced Me|website=The Haiku Foundation}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Takajo, Mitsuhashi}}
Category:People from Narita, Chiba
Category:Writers from Chiba Prefecture
Category:20th-century Japanese poets
Category:20th-century Japanese women writers
{{japan-poet-stub}}