Kiyosuke Fujiwara

The following poem by him was included as No. 84 in Fujiwara no Teika's Ogura Hyakunin Isshu: • Japanese text — Romanized Japanese — English translation •:ながらへば:またこのごろや:しのぼれむ:憂しとみし世ぞ:今は恋しき —:Nagaraeba:mata kono goro ya:shinobaren:ushi to mishi yo zo:ima wa koishiki —:If I live long:I may look back:with yearning:for these painful days—:the world that now:seems harsh:may then appear:sweet and good! He was a member of the conservative Rokujō school of poetic composition, and Donald Keene has called him a "mediocre poet". Suzuki et al., however, say that his brilliant poetry scholarship put him at the top of the waka world in his day. He was one of the first to apply rules of choosing themes, participants and judges in the uta-awase poetry gatherings. His standards of judging poetry, made him a rival of Fujiwara no Shunzei. About 1165, Emperor Nijō commissioned him to compile a waka anthology, which became the Shoku Shika Wakashū. He compiled twenty books of 998 poems, a much larger anthology than its namesake, and submitted to the emperor expecting for it to be recognized as the seventh imperial anthology. The emperor died before its completion, and it remains consigned to the status of a private collection. Ultimately ninety-four of his poems were included in imperial collections.

Kiyosuke Fujiwara is recorded as poet and writer.

Kiyosuke is known primarily as the author of the Fukuro zōshi and the Ōgishō. He was one of the first scholars to question the traditional 905 date of the Kokin Wakashū. In the 1170s, Kiyosuke became the poetry tutor of Fujiwara no Kanezane of the Kujō family. He served as a judge for a number of poetry competitions hosted by Kanezane.