Tagami Kikusha

• Born: 1753/10/14
• Died: 1826/8/23
• Other Names: 一字庵 (Ichijian)
• Japanese: 田上菊舎 (Tagami Kikusha)

Tagami Kikusha was a Pure Land sect Buddhist nun known as a poet, painter, calligrapher, tea practitioner, maker of tea utensils, and traveler.

Kikusha was born in Shimonoseki in 1753. She was married into the local Murata family at age 16, but her husband died four years later; she had no children and returned to her parents' household. After taking the tonsure at age 27, she spent the next thirty years traveling the archipelago; an admirer of Bashô, she took to practicing haikai, and became a notable poet in her own right.

References

• Rebecca Corbett, Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan, University of Hawaii Press (2018), 66.
• Plaque at Manpuku-ji, Uji.[1]