These are the 100 poems behind karuta — the card game from the anime Chihayafuru — chosen near Kyoto over 800 years ago, and still memorized by children across Japan today. This is one of them.
What is Hyakunin Isshu? Read the full guide
The poem
わが庵は 都のたつみ しかぞ住む 世をうぢ山と 人はいふなり
Romaji: Waga io wa / miyako no tatsumi / shika zo sumu / yo o Ujiyama to / hito wa iu nari
My hut lies southeast of the capital, and here I live at peace —
yet people call this Mount Uji “the hill one flees the world upon.”
Who was Kisen Hōshi?
Kisen was a monk-poet counted among the Rokkasen, the “Six Poetic Geniuses” of the early Heian age. Almost nothing of his life survives — he is nearly as legendary as his single famous poem.
Meaning & background
The poem turns on a pun only Japanese can fully carry: “Uji,” the place name, sounds like “ushi,” meaning gloom or weariness with the world. The hermit insists he lives contentedly in his quiet hut — even as the very name of his mountain whispers that he has fled a sorrowful world. Serenity and melancholy in a single breath, hidden inside a place-name.
The commemorative medal
[ メダル画像をここに挿入 / alt: “Hyakunin Isshu Poem 8 Kisen Hōshi commemorative brass medal” ]
Each poem in the Hyakunin Isshu is cast as a 31mm brass commemorative medal, struck by master craftsmen in Japan — the poem and its poet pressed into metal that will not fade.
Explore the series
Poem 7 (Abe no Nakamaro) · Poem 9 (Ono no Komachi) · What is Hyakunin Isshu? Full guide