Introduction
It was Akiko’s special privilege to round out more than a third of a century in her poetic career.
The creed, if it can be called such, of the New Society was embodied in the small volume by Akiko brought out by the Society on April 15, 1901. The Midare gami (Tangled Hair) contained four hundred poems of passionate exaltation of love and beauty. Not only the content, but also the cover design by Takeji Fujishima, bespoke the new spirit. From the tip of a cupid’s arrow piercing a heart, there blooms a flower, which, according to Akiko, is “Poetry.” In fact, to the members of this group, poetry and love were so closely identified that Akiko’s triumph in love, which was also her triumph in poetry, made her the logical figure to preside over their destinies.
This juvenile conception of love and poetry demands an explanation. The one conspicuous feature of Western poetry is its preoccupation with love. Every poet is a potential lover, and the relation between man and woman plays an important rôle in poetry. The Japanese poet, to the contrary, took this relation as something commonplace and obvious. His marriage was arranged, and his wife he regarded as simply an
11 
