SOURCE: “Nun Abutsu,” in Waiting for the Wind: Thirty-Six Poets of Japan's Late Medieval Age, translated by Steven D. Carter, Columbia University Press, 1989, pp. 78-79.

In the following excerpt, Carter provides a biographical sketch of Abutsu and assesses her overall literary importance.

As is the case with so many women of her time, the precise background of the court lady now known as the Nun Abutsu is obscure. Documents indicate that she was raised by one Taira no Norishige, a low-ranking courtier of the provincial governor class. We also know that she served in her teens as a lady-in-waiting to Ex-Empress (an honorary title) Ankamon'in, whence she herself received the lay name Ankamon'in no Shijō. After being rejected by a lover, she retired from society for a time. Thereafter she seems to have accompanied Norishige to the provinces for a brief period.

Her importance in literary history began...