was a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese tanka poet and calligrapher

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

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Saishū wrote a poetry column for the magazine Shinsei ("New Voices"). He also founded the Shazensō Sha ("Plantain Society") in 1905, which stressed clarity, simplicity, and capturing ordinary experiences in poetry. This was in reaction to the style of the tanka poets associated with Myōjō

Myojo

' was the title of a monthly literary magazine first published in Japan between February 1900 and November 1908.The name Myōjō can be translates as either Bright Star or Morning Star. It was the organ of a poetry circle called Shinshisha which had been founded by Yosano Tekkan in 1899...

magazine (such as Yosano Akiko

Yosano Akiko

was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji period as well as the Taishō and early Showa periods of Japan. Her name at birth was Otori Shô. She is one of the most famous, and most controversial, post-classical woman poets...

) which emphasized the passionate side of human nature. Members of the Shazensō Sha included the noted Naturalist tanka poets Wakayama Bokusui

Wakayama Bokusui

was a Japanese author. Wakayama was a Naturalist tanka poet who was active at the beginning of the 20th century, during the tanka revival started by Yosano Tekkan....

 and Maeda Yūgure (who had been tutored by Onoe Saishū).