Although not as well known as Saigy or Bash, the renga poet Sgi is often grouped with them by scholars as one of Japan's three great traveling poets. In addition, he deserves attention as a true master of the genre of linked verse and as perhaps Japan's first professional poet.

Sgi was born in 1421, most likely into a warrior family serving the Rokkaku clan just to the east of Kyoto in Omi Province (modern Shiga Prefecture). There are no historical records concerning his childhood. Indeed, all that is known of his early years is that as a young man he was placed in Shkokuji, a prominent Zen monastery in Kyoto, where he seems to have worked in an administrative capacity.

Located just east of the offices of the Ashikaga shogunate, Shokokuji was one of the largest and most powerful Zen establishments of the time. Its ties to the...