Tekkan Yosano

Yosano Hiroshi, known by his pen name Tekkan Yosano was a Japanese author and poet active in late Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa era. His wife was fellow author Yosano Akiko. His grandson was politician Kaoru Yosano.

Early life

Yosano was born in Kyoto as the son of Buddhist priest, and was a graduate of Keio University. After graduation, he taught Japanese language for four years at Tokuyama Girls' School, in what is now Shunan city, Yamaguchi prefecture. He was forced to quit over alleged improprieties with one of his students. At the age of 20, he moved to Tokyo. He supported himself as a staff writer for Tokyo newspapers. On 11 May 1894, he published a strongly worded article encouraging the reform of traditional Japanese poetry, or waka, to give it more originality and thus make it more popular.

Literary career

Yosano was a disciple of Ochiai Naobumi, and a prominent founding member of the latter's Asaka Society.
In 1900, Yosano founded the literary magazine Myōjō, and soon collected a circle of famous poets, including Kitahara Hakushū, Yoshii Isamu and Ishikawa Takuboku. The magazine was immediately popular with young poets who shared Yosano's enthusiasm for revitalizing waka through the medium of tanka poetry. One of the earliest contributors to his magazine was a young woman named Hō Shō, better known by her pen-name Yosano Akiko.
Yosano's own works include Bokoku no on, which despite its title was a collection of literary criticism, and Tōzai namboku, an anthology of his poetry, mostly tanka, but also several shintaishi and renga.He published a poetry collection "Kasi no ha" including the first Gogyōshi collection "Syōkyoku" in 1910.
Yosano is also one of the five authors of the essays 5 Pairs of Shoes.