Early life Hisajo Sugita was born in
Kagoshima City, in Japan's
Kagoshima Prefecture, in 1890. Her birth name was Hisa, not Hisajo. She was the third daughter of Renzo Akahori, the
minister of finance, and his wife, Sayo. Her father was frequently transferred to different places for work, so before she turned 12 years old, Sugita had lived in
Naha,
Okinawa;
Chiayi,
Taiwan; and
Taipei. She graduated from Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School (now
Ochanomizu University High School) in 1908. In 1909, she married Udai Sugita, an art teacher and
painter. Hisajo said she had always dreamed of marrying a painter. The couple moved to Kokura in
Fukuoka Prefecture (now
Kitakyushu), where her husband had been hired to teach. Five years later, her second daughter, Mitsuko, was born.
Haiku career and turbulent home life Sugita's older brother, Gessen Akahori, who was a
haiku poet, came to stay with her in 1917. It was then that he introduced her to writing haiku. Previously, Sugita had aimed to become a novelist, but she became fascinated with the haiku form. She began to write for the Japanese literary magazine
Hototogisu, with her first poem debuting in the magazine in 1917. In May of that year, she met
Kyoshi Takahama at a gathering of haiku poets hosted by Misako Ijima. By that time, her husband had stopped producing art, and she was disappointed by her life with him. Instead, she became an ardent admirer of Takahama, and he became her mentor. Rumors of an affair swirled. In 1920, as Sugita began to develop
kidney disease, she also began to talk of
divorce. But her husband refused to agree to it. He blamed the family discord on her focus on her work, and she temporarily stopped writing haikus. == References ==