Born in 1907 in Hikami District (now Tamba City), Hyogo Prefecture, to a wealthy farming family. After graduating from the Japanese Literature department of Japan Women's University and recovering from tuberculosis, she devoted herself to haiku. She studied under Matsuse Seisei and later, with her husband Sawaki Kinichi, co-led the haiku journal Kaze (Wind). Her style — 'plain in every way, yet never ordinary' — continued to sing of the sense of life that inhabits the details of the everyday. As one of the pinnacles of postwar women's haiku, she influenced many who came after. She died on September 6, 1997, at 89.

Simple, fresh, and combining a distinctly feminine delicacy with inner strength. By fusing the 'beauty of metaphor' from her teacher Seisei with her own sense of daily life, she opened a new horizon for postwar women's haiku.

Her famous haiku — 'The tulip holds only joy' and 'Broad beans truly have a green taste' — are widely loved for their plain yet vivid rendering of concrete things. The journal Kaze she co-founded with her husband Kinichi continues today, and she remains a monumental figure in the history of women's haiku.