The
Japanese poet Princess Shikishi (which can also be read as Shokushi), was a daughter of Emperor
Go-Shirakawa (
1127-
1192).
We do not know the year of her birth. The earliest information about her is that in 1159 she was sent as miko (shrine maiden) to the Kamo Shrine, an office usually held by a young imperial princess. Ten years later, she returned to Kyoto, where she lived in various palaces, remaining unmarried. In 1194, she took the tonsure as a Buddhist nun; seven years later she died, in 1201.
She did not participate in any of the great public poetic events of her day and so little is known about her lifestyle. Legend has it that she had an affair with Fujiwara no Teika.
The princess studied poetic composition under Fujiwara no Shunzei, who was so impressed with her work that he included nine of her poems in the Senzaishu anthology(1188). Forty-nine of her poems were included in the Shin Kokinshu antholgy. About four hundred of her poems survive.
The cloistered emperor Go-Toba], a poet and patron of literature, said of her that she "wrote in highly wrought, intricate style."