Yūji Kinoshita was a Japanese poet, a member of the group associated with the journal Shiki, and famous during his lifetime for his pastoral poetry.
Background
He was born the second son of Tsuneichi Kinoshita in Miyuki, a village in the eastern part of Hiroshima Prefecture. On 22 July 1920 his father was killed at work. On 3 August 1922, his mother married Tsuneichi"s brother, Itsu, a pharmacist.
Career
Many of his haiku appear in English-language anthologies. Kinoshita disliked working as a pharmacist and is described by his family as a distant man who frequently undercharged his clients for the medicine he provided. He spent all of his spare time on his poems, of which 400 survive.
They were published in ten collections.
In July 1965 he wrote his last poem, "Gone So Long", commissioned by a newspaper for the 20th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. He died a month later of colon cancer.
His complete works were published in November of the same year.