Lucille M. Nixon (December 24, 1908 – December 22, 1963) was a poet and school supervisor from

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. In 1957 she became the first foreigner selected to participate in

Utakai Hajime The is an annual gathering, convened by the Emperor of Japan, in which participants read traditional Japanese poetry on a common theme before a wider audience. It is held on 1 January at the Tokyo Imperial Palace, and is broadcast live on the nat ...

, the Imperial New Year's Poetry Reading of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Nixon performed a 31 syllable

waka Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...

about the

Hōryū-ji is a Buddhist temple that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples, in Ikaruga, Nara Prefecture, Japan. Its full name is , or Learning Temple of the Flourishing Law, the complex serving as both a seminary and monastery. The temple wa ...

, a Buddhist temple she had visited on a trip two years earlier. After her reading, she won the praises of Emperor

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

, who encouraged her to continue writing Japanese poetry so she could become a "bridge" between Japan and the United States.

Bibliography

She authored a number of books. Among them are: *''The Choice is Always Ours: The Classic Anthology on the Spiritual Way'', Dorothy B. Phillips (Editor), Lucille M. Nixon (Editor), Elizabeth B. Howes (Editor) *''Sounds from the unknown; a collection of Japanese-American

tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the ''Man'yōshū'' (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to distinguish "short poem ...

'', Lucille M. Nixon (Editor), Tomoe Tana *''Young ranchers at Oak Valley'' *''Living in Japan''

Death and legacy

Nixon died in 1963. An elementary school in Palo Alto currently bears her name.About Lucille M. Nixon Elementary School
Retrieved 18 August 2007.

References

1908 births 1963 deaths 20th-century American poets Poets from California American women poets 20th-century American women writers {{US-poet-1900s-stub