Fujiwara no Yoshitaka

He produced a private waka collection, the Yoshitaka-shū.

Yoshitaka was born in 954, the son of Fujiwara no Koretada. He served as captain of the right bodyguards. He was the father of the respected calligrapher Yukinari. When his father died, Yoshitaka considered ordaining as a Buddhist monk. In the same year his son was born, which dissuaded him from pursuing a religious career. He died in 974, at age twenty, of smallpox, on the same day as his twin brother.

Twelve of his poems were included in imperial anthologies, and he was listed as one of the Late Classical Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry. The following poem by him was included as No. 50 in Fujiwara no Teika's Ogura Hyakunin Isshu: • Japanese text — Romanized Japanese — English translation •:君がため:惜しからざりし:命さへ:長くもがなと:思ひけるかな —:Kimi ga tame:oshikarazarishi:inochi sae:nagaku mogana to:omoikeru kana —:I always thought:I would give my life:to meet you only once:but now, having spent a night:with you, I wish that I may:go on living forever. He left a private collection, the Yoshitaka-shū.