Murakami Kijo (
1865-
1938) was a
Japanese
haiku poet, a frequent contributor to the haiku magazine
Hototogisu, and one of the followers of the great modern master
Masaoka Shiki.
As a young man, he studied law but had to give it up when he became deaf due to an illness. Starting in
1894, he worked as a legal scribe in a courthouse in
Takasaki, a small town about sixty miles from
Tokyo. With his meager salary, he had a difficult time supporting his ten children. He was fired in
1915, but the friends he had met though his poetry intervened and he returned to his post. In
1927, the luckless Kijo lost his possessions and his home in a fire.
Kijo is often compared to the great master
Kobayashi Issa because both men led lives of sorrow and hardship and their work is characterized by a deep empathy.