The Old Days Comments

Kansenjo was a woman poet close to Chiyo-ni. Not so close as Suejo, but almost. The 3 of them were nuns. Kasenjo was from Mikuni, or Fukai Prefecture. In her younger days she was a prostitute and went by the name Hasegawa, but in her later years she became a nun like Chiyo-ni, naming herself Takitani-ni (Waterfall Valley) . - BTW, it wasn't unusual for a nun to be friends with a prostitute because both were outside the normal social structure, having freedom unlike other women to devote to writing.