Which Heian poet was one of the Rokkasen and is famed for beauty in waka legend?

The Heian poet who belonged to the Rokkasen and became famed for her beauty in waka legend was Ono no Komachi.

Ono no Komachi was a waka poet of the early Heian period and the only woman among the Rokkasen, the “Six Poetic Geniuses” praised in the preface to the Kokin Wakashu. Her surviving poems are especially associated with longing, desire, absence, and the instability of romantic relationships.

Historical details about Komachi are sparse, including her exact birth and death dates. Later stories transformed her into an almost legendary figure: a woman of extraordinary beauty whose lovers pursued her, followed by tales of poverty and lonely old age after her beauty faded. These episodes are literary traditions rather than securely documented biography.

Her name became connected with feminine beauty in Japan, and she later appeared in Noh drama and other works. The other options were important Heian women writers, but Sei Shonagon, Izumi Shikibu, and Murasaki Shikibu are not the Rokkasen member described here.